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The-One.txt
| 6 |
male counterpart says, “just when you think the details surrounding Chelsea Carr’s death couldn’t get any worse—they do.” Sloane turns off the radio. She wonders what the likelihood is that the FBI will get involved, like Ethan said. A horn blares outside her window. She turns to see a dark SUV enter the intersection, speeding toward her driver’s side door. She floors the gas as she flies beneath the red light, her heart hammering against her chest. In her rearview mirror, she watches with wide eyes as the SUV skids to a stop, missing the back of her car by mere inches. Mouth agape, she clings to the steering wheel, her chest heaving up and down. She drives a good ten miles per hour under the speed limit the rest of the way to the hospital, still shaking when she pulls into the parking garage. She contemplates calling in sick. But at this late hour, they’d be hard pressed to find anyone to replace her. Everyone in the ER was overworked and exhausted. Evelyn turns her Escalade into the Physician’s Only parking bay beside her, and Sloane feels a ping of guilt at the thought of abandoning her. Plus, it would only add to Brody’s case if he does accuse her of conspiring with him to kill Chelsea—if she’s out sick the days following her death. She takes a steadying breath before opening her car door. “Morning, sunshine.” Evelyn appears behind her Porsche holding a large Starbucks. “I texted you to see if you wanted coffee.” “Oh,” Sloane says. “I must have my phone on silent.” She runs a hand through her hair, unable to remember if she brushed it that morning. Evelyn’s long hair is pulled back, and her eyes are puffy. While she looks sleep deprived, she also looks happy. Sloane swallows back the envy she feels creep to the surface. Evelyn assesses her before taking a sip from her drink. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but you look like crap.” Evelyn elbows her as a smile forms on her lips. “You sure you’re not pregnant?” Chapter 30 Ethan stares at the underwater photo of Chelsea on Carr’s living room wall. TESU was still working to recover any deleted images off Chelsea’s phone when Ethan called them this morning. According to the data extraction technician whom he spoke with, if there were images deleted from her device, whoever deleted them was tech savvy enough to permanently delete them from her cloud storage. But if they were deleted in the last sixty days, the technician was hopeful they could recover them. It would just take time. Ethan wasn’t as optimistic. The app founder undoubtedly has the knowledge and resources to ensure the images won’t be found. When Ethan asked if there was an option to send the phone to a private electronic forensics lab if TESU was unsuccessful, he was told that with TESU’s recently upgraded technology, if they couldn’t recover the images, no other lab could either. He crosses his arms as he studies Chelsea’s lean, athletic form, diving
| 0 |
46 |
To Kill a Mockingbird.txt
| 70 |
Finches are supposed to do...." "I don't want you to remember it. Forget it." He went to the door and out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He nearly slammed it, but caught himself at the last minute and closed it softly. As Jem and I stared, the door opened again and Atticus peered around. His eyebrows were raised, his glasses had slipped. "Get more like Cousin Joshua every day, don't I? Do you think I'll end up costing the family five hundred dollars?" I know now what he was trying to do, but Atticus was only a man. It takes a woman to do that kind of work. 14 Although we heard no more about the Finch family from Aunt Alexandra, we heard plenty from the town. On Saturdays, armed with our nickels, when Jem permitted me to accompany him (he was now positively allergic to my presence when in public), we would squirm our way through sweating sidewalk crowds and sometimes hear, "There's his chillun," or, "Yonder's some Finches." Turning to face our accusers, we would see only a couple of farmers studying the enema bags in the Mayco Drugstore window. Or two dumpy countrywomen in straw hats sitting in a Hoover cart. "They c'n go loose and rape up the countryside for all of 'em who run this county care," was one obscure observation we met head on from a skinny gentleman when he passed us. Which reminded me that I had a question to ask Atticus. "What's rape?" I asked him that night. Atticus looked around from behind his paper. He was in his chair by the window. As we grew older, Jem and I thought it generous to allow Atticus thirty minutes to himself after supper. He sighed, and said rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent. "Well if that's all it is why did Calpurnia dry me up when I asked her what it was?" Atticus looked pensive. "What's that again?" "Well, I asked Calpurnia comin' from church that day what it was and she said ask you but I forgot to and now I'm askin' you." His paper was now in his lap. "Again, please," he said. I told him in detail about our trip to church with Calpurnia. Atticus seemed to enjoy it, but Aunt Alexandra, who was sitting in a corner quietly sewing, put down her embroidery and stared at us. "You all were coming back from Calpurnia's church that Sunday?" Jem said, "Yessum, she took us." I remembered something. "Yessum, and she promised me I could come out to her house some afternoon. Atticus. I'll go next Sunday if it's all right, can I? Cal said she'd come get me if you were off in the car." "You may not." Aunt Alexandra said it. I wheeled around, startled, then turned back to Atticus in time to catch his swift glance at her, but it was too late. I said, "I didn't ask you!" For a big man, Atticus could get up and down from a
| 1 |
2 |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt
| 25 |
know if you know where that is--at a hurling match between the Croke's Own Boys and the Fearless Thurles and by God, Stevie, that was the hard fight. My first cousin, Fonsy Davin, was stripped to his buff that day minding cool for the Limericks but he was up with the forwards half the time and shouting like mad. I never will forget that day. One of the Crokes made a woeful wipe at him one time with his caman and I declare to God he was within an aim's ace of getting it at the side of his temple. Oh, honest to God, if the crook of it caught him that time he was done for. --I am glad he escaped, Stephen had said with a laugh, but surely that's not the strange thing that happened you? --Well, I suppose that doesn't interest you, but leastways there was such noise after the match that I missed the train home and I couldn't get any kind of a yoke to give me a lift for, as luck would have it, there was a mass meeting that same day over in Castletownroche and all the cars in the country were there. So there was nothing for it only to stay the night or to foot it out. Well, I started to walk and on I went and it was coming on night when I got into the Ballyhoura hills, that's better than ten miles from Kilmallock and there's a long lonely road after that. You wouldn't see the sign of a christian house along the road or hear a sound. It was pitch dark almost. Once or twice I stopped by the way under a bush to redden my pipe and only for the dew was thick I'd have stretched out there and slept. At last, after a bend of the road, I spied a little cottage with a light in the window. I went up and knocked at the door. A voice asked who was there and I answered I was over at the match in Buttevant and was walking back and that I'd be thankful for a glass of water. After a while a young woman opened the door and brought me out a big mug of milk. She was half undressed as if she was going to bed when I knocked and she had her hair hanging and I thought by her figure and by something in the look of her eyes that she must be carrying a child. She kept me in talk a long while at the door, and I thought it strange because her breast and her shoulders were bare. She asked me was I tired and would I like to stop the night there. She said she was all alone in the house and that her husband had gone that morning to Queenstown with his sister to see her off. And all the time she was talking, Stevie, she had her eyes fixed on my face and she stood so close to me I could hear
| 1 |
34 |
The Call of the Wild.txt
| 35 |
inability to get under way earlier in the morning prevented them from travelling longer hours. Not only did they not know how to work dogs, but they did not know how to work themselves. The first to go was Dub. Poor blundering thief that he was, always getting caught and punished, he had none the less been a faithful worker. His wrenched shoulder-blade, untreated and unrested, went from bad to worse, till finally Hal shot him with the big Colt's revolver. It is a saying of the country that an Outside dog starves to death on the ration of the husky, so the six Outside dogs under Buck could do no less than die on half the ration of the husky. The Newfoundland went first, followed by the three short-haired pointers, the two mongrels hanging more grittily on to life, but going in the end. By this time all the amenities and gentlenesses of the Southland had fallen away from the three people. Shorn of its glamour and romance, Arctic travel became to them a reality too harsh for their manhood and womanhood. Mercedes ceased weeping over the dogs, being too occupied with weeping over herself and with quarrelling with her husband and brother. To quarrel was the one thing they were never too weary to do. Their irritability arose out of their misery, increased with it, doubled upon it, outdistanced it. The wonderful patience of the trail which comes to men who toil hard and suffer sore, and remain sweet of speech and kindly, did not come to these two men and the woman. They had no inkling of such a patience. They were stiff and in pain; their muscles ached, their bones ached, their very hearts ached; and because of this they became sharp of speech, and hard words were first on their lips in the morning and last at night. Charles and Hal wrangled whenever Mercedes gave them a chance. It was the cherished belief of each that he did more than his share of the work, and neither forbore to speak this belief at every opportunity. Sometimes Mercedes sided with her husband, sometimes with her brother. The result was a beautiful and unending family quarrel. Starting from a dispute as to which should chop a few sticks for the fire (a dispute which concerned only Charles and Hal), presently would be lugged in the rest of the family, fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, people thousands of miles away, and some of them dead. That Hal's views on art, or the sort of society plays his mother's brother wrote, should have anything to do with the chopping of a few sticks of firewood, passes comprehension; nevertheless the quarrel was as likely to tend in that direction as in the direction of Charles's political prejudices. And that Charles's sister's tale-bearing tongue should be relevant to the building of a Yukon fire, was apparent only to Mercedes, who disburdened herself of copious opinions upon that topic, and incidentally upon a few other traits unpleasantly peculiar to her husband's family. In the meantime
| 1 |
95 |
USS-Lincoln.txt
| 31 |
emotions, the weight of an unresolved past and an equally uncertain future. Finally, Viv sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. Her words were barely audible. “Fine, Galvin. Do what you have to do. We’ll just throw this on the growing pile of reasons we should never have …” She let her words die. I nodded, my heart heavy with regret. My Jadoo ring was vibrating. “I’m needed on the bridge.” She nodded. As I turned to leave, the air between us was still thick with unresolved tension. I stopped and looked back at her. “Think about what you want, Viv … what you really want. I’ll support you in any way I can.” Chapter 44 I reached the captain’s mount and took a seat, eyes locked onto the halo display. “We’re just entering the asteroid field, Captain,” Grimes said. “Yeah, well, there’s no clear path to Adams,” Akari added. “This field has obviously moved, drifted, since Lincoln traversed this rocky maze almost a decade ago. I’ll try to use rail guns sparingly.” A sudden burst of rail spikes eviscerated an asteroid the size of the Hub Gunther, clearing their slow, methodical progression deeper into the field. Seeing Akari’s profile, I glimpsed a smile—at least someone still loved her job here. Bosun Polk joined me at the captain’s mount. “Sitrep, Bosun?” “The crew is … begrudgingly making preparations to abandon ship. Only what someone can carry with them on their person goes onboard Lincoln.” “Let’s dedicate extra resources to HealthBay … kid gloves when it comes to moving the patients—” “Met with Doc Viv an hour ago; we’ll be using hovercarts to move the patients. They’ll hardly know they’re being moved.” I looked over to Polk. “Wait, she didn’t have a problem with moving them?” Polk hitched a shoulder. “I guess, but no more than anyone else has a problem with the move.” Viv’s vehement reaction earlier … What was all that about? “Just make sure anything she wants to take with her, MediBots, specialized equipment, her medication stores; hell, if she wants the deck plates—make sure it’s moved over.” “Don’t worry, Cap … We’ll take care of your … um, Doc Viv.” Polk’s cheeks flushed, catching herself misspeaking. Another burst of rail spikes shattered an even larger asteroid, Adams’ shields coming alive as an influx of gravel pieces peppered the protective barrier. I let Polk’s comment go unanswered but was curious as to what she’d almost said. My what? My main squeeze? My girlfriend? Perhaps that was the problem. Hell, if I didn’t know … Chen said, “I have confirmation both Portent and Wrath have entered the asteroid field behind us.” The halo display segmented, Hardy’s form now prominent. “My sensors are tingling.” “Okay, not sure what we’re supposed to do with that bit of news?” I said. “Liquilids are on the move. Not slow and unhurried like before. They’re making a mad dash for us.” Akari stole a quick look back at me. “He’s not wrong. Sir Calvin just pinged an alert … realizing the same thing.” “That’s all we need,
| 0 |
64 |
Happy Place.txt
| 21 |
be on your terms.” “No one’s forcing you to stay!” Sabrina says. “If you want to go, go!” Cleo looks down at her feet, a tiny fern growing up between the cracks in the sidewalk there, right between her sandals. “Fine,” she says. “Kimmy and I will find a hotel for the night.” Another cold laugh from Sabrina. “So, what, you’re going to consciously uncouple from our friendship?” “I’m going to take some space,” Cleo says. “This is ridiculous,” Sabrina replies. “You won’t find anywhere to stay on this entire coast.” Cleo’s lips press tighter. “Then we’ll sleep in the guesthouse tonight.” “And then what?” Sabrina says. “I don’t know yet,” Cleo said. “Maybe leave.” I have no idea how to argue with her, or if I even want to. My head throbs. Everything is all wrong. Finally, Sabrina says, “I’ll get the car.” She turns and stalks down the street. I look back the way we came. Even in silhouette, Kimmy, Wyn, and Parth look rigid. They heard everything. In a way, I tell myself, it’s a relief, to have everything out in the open. But the truth is, if I could take it all back, I would. I’d do anything to go back to that happy place, outside of time, where nothing from real life can touch us. 32 REAL LIFE Friday ON THE DRIVE home, we’re silent. Now that the truth is out, Wyn and I can’t even look at each other. He won’t look at Parth either, keeps his eyes fixed out the car window. As soon as we get inside the cottage, everyone retreats, and rather than endure any more awkward or painful run-ins, I tuck myself away in the first- floor powder room. When I make my way up the stairs, though, Kimmy and Cleo are coming down, bags in hand, bound for the guesthouse. Cleo doesn’t look at me. Neither of them says anything, but Kimmy flashes a tense smile and squeezes my hand as we pass. A lump forms in my throat at the whine of the front door opening behind me. I don’t go to Wyn’s and my room. The bubble has popped, this pocket universe collapsed. Instead, I take the kids’ room. It’s tidy, the twin beds returned to opposite walls and neatly made. Cleo and Kimmy left no trace of themselves here apart from the lingering scent of Kimmy’s peppermint oil. I sit on the edge of the bed, feeling the loneliness swell, not knowing whether it’s pressing against me from the outside or growing from within. Either way, it’s inescapable, my oldest companion. I shuck off my clothes and crawl into bed. I don’t cry, but I don’t sleep either. The argument replays in my mind on a feverish loop until it feels like the words melt together nonsensically. I ask myself, again and again, why I didn’t tell them. All the same half- assed answers cycle through my mind until I’m as sick with myself as everyone else is. I turn onto my back and glare up at a
| 0 |
41 |
The Secret Garden.txt
| 1 |
suddenly touched his hat gardener fashion and said, "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" and obediently disappeared as he descended the ladder. CHAPTER XXII WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN When his head was out of sight Colin turned to Mary. "Go and meet him," he said; and Mary flew across the grass to the door under the ivy. Dickon was watching him with sharp eyes. There were scarlet spots on his cheeks and he looked amazing, but he showed no signs of falling. "I can stand," he said, and his head was still held up and he said it quite grandly. "I told thee tha' could as soon as tha' stopped bein' afraid," answered Dickon. "An' tha's stopped." "Yes, I've stopped," said Colin. Then suddenly he remembered something Mary had said. "Are you making Magic?" he asked sharply. Dickon's curly mouth spread in a cheerful grin. "Tha's doin' Magic thysel'," he said. "It's same Magic as made these 'ere work out o' th' earth," and he touched with his thick boot a clump of crocuses in the grass. Colin looked down at them. "Aye," he said slowly, "there couldna' be bigger Magic than that there--there couldna' be." He drew himself up straighter than ever. "I'm going to walk to that tree," he said, pointing to one a few feet away from him. "I'm going to be standing when Weatherstaff comes here. I can rest against the tree if I like. When I want to sit down I will sit down, but not before. Bring a rug from the chair." He walked to the tree and though Dickon held his arm he was wonderfully steady. When he stood against the tree trunk it was not too plain that he supported himself against it, and he still held himself so straight that he looked tall. When Ben Weatherstaff came through the door in the wall he saw him standing there and he heard Mary muttering something under her breath. "What art sayin'?" he asked rather testily because he did not want his attention distracted from the long thin straight boy figure and proud face. But she did not tell him. What she was saying was this: "You can do it! You can do it! I told you you could! You can do it! You can do it! You can!" She was saying it to Colin because she wanted to make Magic and keep him on his feet looking like that. She could not bear that he should give in before Ben Weatherstaff. He did not give in. She was uplifted by a sudden feeling that he looked quite beautiful in spite of his thinness. He fixed his eyes on Ben Weatherstaff in his funny imperious way. "Look at me!" he commanded. "Look at me all over! Am I a hunchback? Have I got crooked legs?" Ben Weatherstaff had not quite got over his emotion, but he had recovered a little and answered almost in his usual way. "Not tha'," he said. "Nowt o' th' sort. What's tha' been doin' with thysel'--hidin' out o' sight an' lettin'
| 1 |
8 |
David Copperfield.txt
| 35 |
This obliged me to run after her, and she ran so fast that we were very near the cottage before I caught her. 'Oh, it's you, is it?' said little Em'ly. 'Why, you knew who it was, Em'ly,' said I. 'And didn't YOU know who it was?' said Em'ly. I was going to kiss her, but she covered her cherry lips with her hands, and said she wasn't a baby now, and ran away, laughing more than ever, into the house. She seemed to delight in teasing me, which was a change in her I wondered at very much. The tea table was ready, and our little locker was put out in its old place, but instead of coming to sit by me, she went and bestowed her company upon that grumbling Mrs. Gummidge: and on Mr. Peggotty's inquiring why, rumpled her hair all over her face to hide it, and could do nothing but laugh. 'A little puss, it is!' said Mr. Peggotty, patting her with his great hand. 'So sh' is! so sh' is!' cried Ham. 'Mas'r Davy bor', so sh' is!' and he sat and chuckled at her for some time, in a state of mingled admiration and delight, that made his face a burning red. Little Em'ly was spoiled by them all, in fact; and by no one more than Mr. Peggotty himself, whom she could have coaxed into anything, by only going and laying her cheek against his rough whisker. That was my opinion, at least, when I saw her do it; and I held Mr. Peggotty to be thoroughly in the right. But she was so affectionate and sweet-natured, and had such a pleasant manner of being both sly and shy at once, that she captivated me more than ever. She was tender-hearted, too; for when, as we sat round the fire after tea, an allusion was made by Mr. Peggotty over his pipe to the loss I had sustained, the tears stood in her eyes, and she looked at me so kindly across the table, that I felt quite thankful to her. 'Ah!' said Mr. Peggotty, taking up her curls, and running them over his hand like water, 'here's another orphan, you see, sir. And here,' said Mr. Peggotty, giving Ham a backhanded knock in the chest, 'is another of 'em, though he don't look much like it.' 'If I had you for my guardian, Mr. Peggotty,' said I, shaking my head, 'I don't think I should FEEL much like it.' 'Well said, Mas'r Davy bor'!' cried Ham, in an ecstasy. 'Hoorah! Well said! Nor more you wouldn't! Hor! Hor!' - Here he returned Mr. Peggotty's back-hander, and little Em'ly got up and kissed Mr. Peggotty. 'And how's your friend, sir?' said Mr. Peggotty to me. 'Steerforth?' said I. 'That's the name!' cried Mr. Peggotty, turning to Ham. 'I knowed it was something in our way.' 'You said it was Rudderford,' observed Ham, laughing. 'Well!' retorted Mr. Peggotty. 'And ye steer with a rudder, don't ye? It ain't fur off. How is he, sir?' 'He
| 1 |
82 |
Robyn-Harding-The-Drowning-Woman.txt
| 57 |
the gym. But not Jesse’s gym, surely. Seattle is a big city, with hundreds of workout options. What are the odds that the two had met, had developed a relationship? A relationship that had gotten him killed. When I am safely ensconced in a forested thicket, I press the heels of my palms into my eyes. Don’t cry, I admonish myself. Don’t fall apart now. You’ve survived this long on your own. But my throat is thick with sadness, my heart tight and racing. Jesse is dead. His chest full of deep gashes, his face grotesque in its death mask. He was my lover. My comfort. My safe place. And someone has brutally murdered him. In Hazel’s beautiful house. Suspicious thoughts swirl in my head, snaking their way through my grief. Had my feelings for Jesse blinded me to the red flags? His sparse apartment and luxury car were at odds. He had never given me his phone number, leaving me waiting and wondering for days on end. Did Jesse have another life that I wasn’t a part of? Another woman? And was that woman Hazel? I had pitied her, tried to save her from a sick and toxic marriage. But now I wonder if she tricked me. Played me. All the while, she could have been involved with my boyfriend. But even if she was, why is he dead? And why the fuck did she want me to discover his lifeless body? The purse. I’d had the wherewithal to grab it as I fled, but what is inside? Hazel was supposed to leave me a disguise—a jacket and a hat. I unzip the leather bag and search for the clothing. It’s not there, of course it’s not. Because now I know that Hazel’s plan was just a ruse. My fingers alight on the fat manila envelope and I withdraw it. I’d been so optimistic when I’d first retrieved it. The thought of a new identity, enough money to live like a normal member of society had buoyed me. But it will be filled with useless paper, another cruel trick. My damaged finger throbs and my others are weak from cold, but I tear it open. There is a note on top, handwritten. I pull it out and read it. Lee, You have to go. Start over. Rebuild your life. Jesse is not who you think he is. I’m so sorry. You were always a good friend to me. H. An audible sob shudders out of me, and I press a fist to my mouth. What has Hazel done? To me and to Jesse? I shake the envelope into my lap to see what else Hazel has left me. There is money. A lot of money. Stacks of hundreds wrapped in rubber bands like the proceeds of a robbery. My mind struggles to calculate the number, but it has to be fifty grand, just like she promised. I find a passport too. I open it up; my face, pale and serious, stares back at me. Kelly Jane Wilcox A new birthdate. Born
| 0 |
50 |
A Day of Fallen Night.txt
| 85 |
Grand Empress, or involve her in some intrigue,’ Kanifa said. ‘I mean to keep an eye on her.’ ‘Yes, I’m sure you would be happy to keep a close watch on a beautiful woman.’ Kanifa cocked a heavy eyebrow, a faint smile on his lips. ‘Go to your mother, Dumai of Ipyeda.’ He continued down the corridor. ‘She will cleanse you of such earthly thoughts.’ Dumai screened her grin behind her hair as she stepped into the room. She teased him, but in truth, Kanifa had never expressed interest in anyone. The mountain was his only love. The traveller lay on a mat, covered to his chin with bedding, feet snug in a heat trap. He was about sixty, grey woven through his thick hair, which framed a brown and solemn face. Unora was nearby, watching a kettle. While there were guests in the temple, she was obliged to wear the grey veil of the Maiden Officiant, even outside the rituals she led. The Maiden Officiant acted as the understudy and representative of the Supreme Officiant. While the latter was always a member of the imperial family, the former was usually not of noble birth. Her veil symbolised the waterline between the earthly and celestial realms. ‘There you are.’ Unora patted the floor. ‘Come.’ Dumai knelt beside her. ‘Have you found out who he is?’ ‘A saltwalker, from his collection.’ Her mother motioned to a dish, full of shells of rare beauty. ‘He woke for long enough to ask me where he was.’ For a saltwalker, he was curiously unweathered. They were wanderers who tended to the ancient shrines – only ever washing in the sea, dressing in what they found on its shore. ‘And the climber?’ Dumai said. ‘Did you learn why she came so late in the year?’ ‘Yes.’ Unora took the steaming kettle from the pothook. ‘You know I can’t share her secrets, but she made a choice she fears may cause a scandal at court. She needed to clear her mind.’ ‘Perhaps I could talk to her, give her some comfort. I think I am about her age.’ ‘A kind offer, but it was my counsel she sought.’ Unora tipped the boiled water into a cup. ‘Don’t concern yourself, my kite. Your life is on this mountain, and it needs your full devotion.’ ‘Yes, Mother.’ Dumai glanced at the saltwalker. A chill grazed her spine. Not only was he now awake, but his gaze was hard and stunned on her face. He looked as if he had seen a water ghost. Unora noticed, stiffening. ‘Honourable stranger.’ She moved between them, the cup between her hands. ‘Welcome. You have come to the High Temple of Kwiriki. I am its Maiden Officiant.’ The man did not utter a word. ‘Mountain sickness . . . can shadow the sight. Can you see?’ Dumai was starting to feel nervous. Finally, the man said, ‘I have a thirst.’ His voice came deep and rough. Unora held the cup to his lips. ‘Your head may be very light for a time,’ she told him
| 0 |
81 |
Riley-Sager-The-Only-One-Left.txt
| 14 |
push off the wall into a standing position. “Into what?” “Your uniform, of course.” Mrs. Baker steps away from the door, allowing me to peek inside. The room is small but tidy. Butter yellow walls, a dresser, a reading chair, a large bookshelf blessedly filled with books. There’s even a view of the ocean, which under different circumstances would make my heart sing. But I’m too focused on the bed and the white nurse’s uniform sitting on top of it, folded as neatly as a napkin in a fancy restaurant. “If it doesn’t fit properly, I can find a seamstress who’ll be able to do some alterations,” Mrs. Baker says. I eye the uniform like it’s a ticking time bomb. “You seriously want me to wear this?” “No, dear,” Mrs. Baker says. “I require that you wear it.” “But I’m not a nurse.” “You are here.” I should have known this was coming. I’d seen Jessica in her ridiculous maid’s outfit and Archie in his chef’s gear. “I know you think it’s silly,” Mrs. Baker says. “The nurses before you did as well. Even Mary. But we abide by the old ways here. And those ways involve a strict dress code. Besides, it’s what Miss Hope is accustomed to. To deviate now would likely confuse and upset her.” It’s that last bit that makes me concede defeat. While I don’t give a damn about abiding by the old ways—why follow them if no one is ever here to notice?—I can’t argue with not wanting to upset a patient. I have no choice but to suck it up and wear the uniform. Mrs. Baker waits in the hall as I close the door and strip out of my coat, skirt, and blouse. On goes the uniform, which doesn’t quite fit. It’s loose at the hips, just right at the bust, and tight at the shoulders, making it simultaneously too snug and not snug enough. By the time the winged cap is pinned to my head, I feel positively ridiculous. In the adjoining bathroom, I check to see how I look. It’s . . . not bad, actually. While undeniably formal, the tightness in the uniform’s shoulders makes me stand a little taller. Forced out of my perpetual slump, I appear less like a caregiver and more like a legitimate nurse. For the first time in months, I feel resourceful again. A refreshing change of pace. Mrs. Baker certainly approves. When I emerge from the bedroom, she lifts her glasses to her eyes and says, “Yes, that’s much better.” Then she’s off again, to the next door down the hallway. Lenora Hope’s room. I suck in a breath when Mrs. Baker opens the door, feeling the need to brace myself. For what, I don’t know. It’s not as if Lenora Hope will be standing just inside, a knife in one hand and a noose in the other. Yet that’s the only thing I can picture as Mrs. Baker gestures for me to step inside. After another deep breath, I do. The first thing I
| 0 |
58 |
Confidence_-a-Novel.txt
| 14 |
up.” “You realize I know about you and Orson, Ezra,” Mack said, a new sharpness in his voice. “You two were fucking. I know how much you love him. I could read it on your face the minute I met you. You’re doing all this for him, aren’t you? Because you can’t get over him? And it’s a shame, isn’t it, because he loves that movie star?” I balled my fists in my lap. “None of that is true.” I could hear a smile creep into Mack’s voice. “It’s all true. And I’m going public with it.” Delpy looked at me like I was another species and I motioned for him to redirect his attention out the cockpit window. “Stop him talking,” I said to Palugas. I could hear the rip of duct tape, Mack’s desperate protests as Palugas sealed off his mouth. Now the writhing began in earnest, Mack kicking the back of my seat, Palugas exerting himself with the effort of keeping him still. “Honestly, Mack, I’m really sorry about this,” I said. “But you’re trying to extort us, you’re spreading weird, salacious rumors. It’s very unprofessional. Please just try to relax, okay? Until we get to the office?” But Mack wouldn’t relax. He broke free from Palugas and banged on the window again, his muffled screams crowding the cabin. Palugas restrained his arms. Mack kicked violently against the hatch. I heard a click: the hatch releasing. The air taxi tipped and Delpy jerked the joystick, trying to right us. Palugas made a noise like he’d been burned on a hot stove and Mack’s duct-taped screams grew more urgent. I turned around and could just make out the purplish night sky, the shape of Palugas clinging to his seat as the shape of Mack fell screaming from the air taxi. “Oh Jesus,” Palugas said, and began to cry. “What the fuck?” I barked. “Why did you let go of him?” “It was either him alone or both of us,” Palugas whined. I rammed the heel of my palm into my forehead. “Fuck!” I could feel Delpy shaking silently beside me. “He fell so far.” The wind blowing in from the open hatch was distorting Palugas’s voice. With a grunt, he pulled the hatch closed, and the sudden stillness in the cab was unsettling. “Yes, he did,” I said, a surge of adrenaline making my stomach turn. Palugas kept crying. “What do we do?” Delpy asked. “Fuck, Ez, what do we do?” “This was not supposed to happen,” I said to myself. “I know it wasn’t,” Delpy said. “I know you know it wasn’t!” I shouted back at him. The cab was silent except for Palugas’s crying. My gears were spinning so fast I felt sick. “We have to just go back to the office,” I said, and turned to Delpy. “Just take us back to the office.” Mack’s body wouldn’t be found for weeks, and by then it would have decayed gruesomely, all traces of his struggle lost to his rotting skin. * * * I took a car to
| 0 |
76 |
Love Theoretically.txt
| 77 |
the entire east wall, and there’s one single piece of art: a framed picture of the Large Hadron Collider. The endcap of the Compact Muon Solenoid—a futuristic, mechanical flower. It’s beautiful. I know that Jack did some work at CERN, and maybe he took it himself— “I’ll change the sheets,” he says, brushing past me toward the dresser, and I realize that I’ve been staring. “Oh, don’t. I’m not exactly picky, and . . .” I clear my throat. Whatever, it’s fine. “We can both sleep in here. I mean, the bed is huge.” He’s giving me his back, but I see the moment the words land. The drawer is half-open, and his movements stutter to a stop. Muscles tense under his shirt, then slowly relax. When he turns around, it’s with his usual uneven smile. “Seems like a lot for you,” he says. A bit strained, maybe. There’s no dimple in sight. “A lot?” “Going from running away from me to sleeping in the same bed, in under one hour.” I flush and look at my toes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to run—I just . . . And I’m not, like, coming on to you.” I’d love to sound sharp and indignant, but it’s just not where I’m at. “We’ve established that you don’t need to come on to me, Elsie. Do you want something to sleep in?” “Oh.” I shake my head. “I’m good. I’m wearing leggings, anyway. I figured that if I had to suffer through 2001, I could at least be comfy.” “I thought you loved the movie.” I give him an appalled look. Jack leans against the dresser, arms crossed. “It’s what your friend said,” he explains. “Oh, no. I mean, she thinks I do. She thinks I’m into artsy movies, but I don’t really . . .” Tell her the truth. I think Jack can read my mind. “Does she know how much you like Twilight?” he asks with a small, kind smile. “No way.” I laugh weakly. “If anything, she might suspect I enjoy it ironically.” “Ironically?” “Yeah. You know, when you like something because it’s bad and love making fun of it?” He nods. “Is that why you enjoy Twilight?” “I don’t know.” I sit on the edge of the mattress, gripping the soft comforter. “I don’t believe so, no.” I ponder. “I like simple, straightforward romance stories with dramatic characters and improbably high stakes,” I add, surprising myself a little. I didn’t know this before putting it into words, and I feel like Jack has beaten me to some part of myself. Again. “Also, I like to imagine Alice and Bella ending up together after the movie is over.” “I see.” As ever, he files away. Then he pulls something that looks like sweats and a tee from under his pillow and heads for the door. “If you change your mind or get cold, just look around. You’ll find something to wear.” “Are you giving me permission to rummage around your bedroom? Like you have nothing to hide?” He lifts one eyebrow.
| 0 |
98 |
Yellowface.txt
| 63 |
in paperback. By her left, a slim hardcover of Mother Witch. I click to expand the caption. Thought you could get rid of me? Sorry, Junie. I’m still kicking. Glad you had a good writing day! I had a good writing day too—here’s me, flipping through some old works for inspiration. Heard you’re a fan ☺ My dinner crawls up my throat. I run for the bathroom. It’s nearly half an hour of panicked breathing and mental exercises before I’m near calm enough to approach my phone again. I run some searches on Twitter: “Athena Liu Instagram,” “Athena Instagram,” “Athena Insta,” “Ghost Athena,” and all the other possible queries I can think of. No one’s talking about this yet. The post didn’t have any hashtags or tag any other accounts. What’s more, the account, which once had nearly a million followers, now has zero. The person behind this has either blocked or soft-blocked all of Athena’s followers. The only person seeing this post is me. Whoever this is, they’re not trying to go viral—they just want to get my attention. How is this even possible? Don’t social media companies shut down accounts upon the owner’s death? This is so fucking stupid, but I Google “Athena Liu alive” to make sure she hasn’t, like, resurrected thanks to some medical miracle without my knowing. But that search returns nothing useful; the most “relevant” result is an article about how a recent English department event at Yale was dedicated to keeping Athena’s memory alive. Athena is dead, gone, turned to ash. The only person who’s convinced she’s still around is me. I ought to block the account and forget about this. It’s likely just some troll, posting grotesque things to fuck with me. That’s what Brett and Daniella would say. That’s what Rory would say, if I tried to explain why I’m so upset. A troll is the obvious and rational explanation, and I repeat this over and over in my mind as I inhale and exhale into my fist, since the most annoying symptom of anxiety is refusing to believe the obvious and rational explanation. Don’t give it power, I urge myself. Just let it alone. But I can’t. It’s like a splinter digging into my palm; even if it’s tiny, I still can’t rest easy, knowing that it’s under my skin. I don’t sleep a wink that night. I lie with my phone screen inches from my face, staring with aching eyes at Athena’s forceful, mischievous smile. A memory rises unbidden to my mind’s eye, a memory that I’d hoped I’d drowned out or forgotten: Athena in her black boots and green shawl, sitting in the front row of the audience at Politics and Prose, beaming expectantly at me with bright, painted lips. Athena: inexplicably, impossibly alive. It’s late on a Friday night, so I can’t get Brett or my publicity team on the line for another two days. But what good could they do? It’s hardly a problem from a publicity perspective. Aside from me, who cares about this post? And it’s
| 0 |
60 |
Divine Rivals.txt
| 42 |
“More? Such as what?” “Anything.” “Very well. I had a pet snail when I was seven.” “A snail?” Iris nodded. “His name was Morgie. I kept him in a serving dish with a little tray of water and some rocks and a few wilted flowers. I told him all of my secrets.” “And whatever happened to Morgie?” “He slinked away one day when I was at school. I came home to discover him gone, and he was nowhere to be found. I cried for a fortnight.” “I can imagine that was devastating,” Roman said, at which Iris playfully batted him. “Don’t poke fun at me, Kitt.” “I’m not, Iris.” He effortlessly caught her hand in his, and they both came to a halt in the middle of the street. “Tell me more.” “More?” she breathed, and while her hand felt hot as kindling, she didn’t pull away from him. “If I tell you anything else today, you’ll grow tired of me.” “Impossible,” he whispered. She felt that shyness creeping over her again. What was happening right now, and why did it feel like wings were beating in her stomach? “What’s your middle name?” Roman asked suddenly. Iris arched her brow, amused. “You might have to earn that morsel of information.” “Oh, come now. Could you at least give me the initial? It would only be fair.” “I suppose I can’t argue with that,” she said. “My middle name begins with an E.” Roman smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “And whatever could it be? Iris Enchanting Winnow? Iris Ethereal Winnow? Iris Exquisite Winnow?” “My gods, Kitt,” she said, blushing. “Let me save us both from this torture. It’s Elizabeth.” “Iris Elizabeth Winnow,” Roman echoed, and she shivered to hear her name in his mouth. Iris held his stare until the mirth faded from his eyes. He was looking at her the way he had in Zeb’s office. As if he could see all of her, and Iris swallowed, telling her heart to calm, to slow. “I need to say something to you,” Roman said, tracing her knuckles with his thumb. “You mentioned the other day that you think I’m only here to ‘outshine’ you. But that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I broke my engagement, quit my job, and traveled six hundred kilometers into war-torn land to be with you, Iris.” Iris squirmed. This didn’t feel real. The way he was looking at her, holding her hand. This must be a dream on the verge of dashing. “Kitt, I—” “Please, let me finish.” She nodded, but she inwardly braced herself. “I don’t really care to write about the war,” he said. “Of course, I’ll do it because the Inkridden Tribune is paying me to, but I would much rather that your articles live on the front page. I would much rather read what you write. Even if they aren’t letters to me.” He paused, rolling his lips together as if he was uncertain. “That first day you were gone. My first day as columnist. It was horrible. I realized I
| 0 |
75 |
Lisa-See-Lady-Tan_s-Circle-of-Women.txt
| 63 |
similar works in the European Renaissance by nearly four hundred years. (That said, state-ordered forensic records in China date back to the second century C.E.) The Washing Away of Wrongs continued to be used by forensic scientists in China well into the twentieth century. Maybe that’s not all that remarkable. The indicators of death by drowning, hanging, stabbing, or poison have not changed through time. I have followed Sung Tz’u’s practices for inquests, including revealing a naked body for all to see, the accused standing to face the corpse, examining the spot where a victim drowned, and the concept that the family and the accused must have the opportunity to face each other. I’ve always taken great pride in going to every place I write about. I couldn’t do that for this book. (As I write this, China continues to have lockdowns in major cities, and the quarantine period for visitors is three weeks.) However, when I researched Peony in Love, I went to several water towns in the Yangzi delta. I was confident about writing about a water town, but I still felt sad that I wasn’t seeing Wuxi with my own eyes. Serendipity came to the rescue once again. One day when I was looking at Twitter, I saw a post about a Ming dynasty building in Wuxi. I sent a direct message to @TheSilkRoad inquiring what else they might know about Ming dynasty sites that still exist in Wuxi. Within a day, Zhang Li sent me links to forty-three Ming dynasty buildings, gardens, and waterways that have survived in Wuxi, along with photos, history, and, in many cases, videos. Soon enough, I was on a boat floating on Wuxi’s canals—during the day, at night, and in a black-and-white documentary made in the 1950s. You can find many of these links on my website in the section called “Step Inside the World of Lady Tan” at www.LisaSee.com. The garden for which the fictional Garden of Fragrant Delights is named is modeled on two gardens, both of which I’ve visited many times: the Humble Administrator’s Garden in Suzhou and the Garden of Flowing Fragrance at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. The Garden of Fragrant Delights compound is very much inspired by the Qiao family compound near the ancient city of Pingyao, which I visited many years ago. The home boasts 313 rooms, six large courtyards, and nineteen smaller courtyards. You might recognize it as the setting for the film Raise the Red Lantern. The marriage bed has been in my family since long before I was born. Generations of See children have played in it. When I was a little girl, the drawers were filled with clothes and shoes so I could play dress-up. My children and their cousins used to watch television in the first antechamber, where a servant once would have slept on the floor. Today, all these years later, I marvel at the beauty of the window paintings, the carved vignettes, and the three separate rooms—all held together without a single
| 0 |
64 |
Happy Place.txt
| 94 |
me in this moment, to slow time even further, like he always has, until this becomes my real life, and everything else—the shoebox apartment, the aching back and knees, the sweat pooling under my gown and mask, the nights staring up at a ceiling that has nothing to say to me—is the memory. “HAR!” someone shouts above us. The moment snaps. We both look up. “CATCH!” I don’t see which of them shouts it. All I see is Kimmy and Cleo—now above us as we’re descending the back of the Ferris wheel—leaned out over their lap bar, laughing hysterically, and then something flamingo pink fluttering, flapping, twirling down toward us. It lands squarely in my lap. “Hold on to that, would you?” Kimmy shouts. Cleo doubles over, her shoulders twitching with laughter. Wyn takes hold of the pink thing and lifts it, spreading it out so the hot- pink bra cups jut from his chest. Above us, Cleo and Kimmy are shrieking now. “This,” Wyn says, “is exactly why I hate getting clothes as presents. Nothing ever fits.” “At least it’s your color,” I say. He tuts, laughing, and shakes his head. “Thanks, Kim.” Kimmy hurls herself forward, squawking something through her guffaws, but Cleo yanks her back against the bench. “Excuse me, Wyn.” I pull the tiny bra out of his hands, holding it in front of me. “In which universe does this fit on Kimmy’s boobs?” He gapes, looks up at Cleo and Kimmy, who are still falling all over each other in fits of laughter, then back at me. “Damn,” he says. “Didn’t see that one coming.” “Me neither,” I say. “I always assumed Cleo was die-hard Free the Nipple.” “What’s going on up there?” Parth calls from below us. They’re starting to level out on the loading platform. “We have to act fast,” Wyn says, expecting me to read his mind. I do. “You’ve got better aim than me.” “I’m not even going to politely argue,” he says, and takes the bra. We lean forward, and as Sabrina and Parth are about to dock, Wyn tosses the bra straight onto Sabrina’s head. “WHAT THE—” she screams, her words cut short when Parth pulls the bra off her head and holds it aloft for examination in the neon light, right as they’re drawing to a stop beside the long-suffering Ferris wheel attendant. Even from here, his grumble sounds like “millennials,” which makes Wyn and me burst into laughter so forceful that tears are literally sliding off my chin. “It happened!” I squeal. “We’ve replaced our parents as the drunk-mom- on-vacation generation.” “Excuse you,” he says, “I think you mean the high-dad-on-vacation generation.” Below us, Sabrina climbs out of her seat, head held high and dignified. She hands the bra over to the attendant and, loudly and clearly enough for all of us and everyone in line to hear, says, “Do you have a lost and found? Someone seems to have dropped this on the ride.” “Are we about to get kicked out of Lobster Fest?” I ask Wyn. His
| 0 |
17 |
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.txt
| 42 |
tried to edge to the left, to get in front of the glass without Quirrell noticing, but the ropes around his ankles were too tight: he tripped and fell over. Quirrell ignored him. He was still talking to himself. "What does this mirror do? How does it work? Help me, Master!" And to Harry's horror, a voice answered, and the voice seemed to come from Quirrell himself "Use the boy...Use the boy..." Quirrell rounded on Harry. "Yes -- Potter -- come here." He clapped his hands once, and the ropes binding Harry fell off. Harry got slowly to his feet. "Come here," Quirrell repeated. "Look in the mirror and tell me what you see." Harry walked toward him. I must lie, he thought desperately. I must look and lie about what I see, that's all. Quirrell moved close behind him. Harry breathed in the funny smell that seemed to come from Quirrell's turban. He closed his eyes, stepped in front of the mirror, and opened them again. He saw his reflection, pale and scared-looking at first. But a moment later, the reflection smiled at him. It put its hand into its pocket and pulled out a blood-red stone. It winked and put the Stone back in its pocket -- and as it did so, Harry felt something heavy drop into his real pocket. Somehow -- incredibly -- he'd gotten the Stone. "Well?" said Quirrell impatiently. "What do you see?" Harry screwed up his courage. "I see myself shaking hands with Dumbledore," he invented. "I -- I've won the house cup for Gryffindor." Quirrell cursed again. "Get out of the way," he said. As Harry moved aside, he felt the Sorcerer's Stone against his leg. Dare he make a break for it? But he hadn't walked five paces before a high voice spoke, though Quirrell wasn't moving his lips. "He lies...He lies..." "Potter, come back here!" Quirrell shouted. "Tell me the truth! What did you just see?" The high voice spoke again. "Let me speak to him...face-to-face..." "Master, you are not strong enough!" "I have strength enough...for this..." Harry felt as if Devil's Snare was rooting him to the spot. He couldn't move a muscle. Petrified, he watched as Quirrell reached up and began to unwrap his turban. What was going on? The turban fell away. Quirrell's head looked strangely small without it. Then he turned slowly on the spot. Harry would have screamed, but he couldn't make a sound. Where there should have been a back to Quirrell's head, there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake. "Harry Potter..." it whispered. Harry tried to take a step backward but his legs wouldn't move. "See what I have become?" the face said. "Mere shadow and vapor...I have form only when I can share another's body...but there have always been those willing to let me into their hearts and minds...Unicorn blood has strengthened me, these past weeks...you saw faithful Quirrell drinking it for me in
| 1 |
29 |
Tarzan of the Apes.txt
| 80 |
Notwithstanding her youth, she was large and powerful--a splendid, clean-limbed animal, with a round, high forehead, which denoted more intelligence than most of her kind possessed. So, also, she had a great capacity for mother love and mother sorrow. But she was still an ape, a huge, fierce, terrible beast of a species closely allied to the gorilla, yet more intelligent; which, with the strength of their cousin, made her kind the most fearsome of those awe-inspiring progenitors of man. When the tribe saw that Kerchak's rage had ceased they came slowly down from their arboreal retreats and pursued again the various occupations which he had interrupted. The young played and frolicked about among the trees and bushes. Some of the adults lay prone upon the soft mat of dead and decaying vegetation which covered the ground, while others turned over pieces of fallen branches and clods of earth in search of the small bugs and reptiles which formed a part of their food. Others, again, searched the surrounding trees for fruit, nuts, small birds, and eggs. They had passed an hour or so thus when Kerchak called them together, and, with a word of command to Chapter 4 24 them to follow him, set off toward the sea. They traveled for the most part upon the ground, where it was open, following the path of the great elephants whose comings and goings break the only roads through those tangled mazes of bush, vine, creeper, and tree. When they walked it was with a rolling, awkward motion, placing the knuckles of their closed hands upon the ground and swinging their ungainly bodies forward. But when the way was through the lower trees they moved more swiftly, swinging from branch to branch with the agility of their smaller cousins, the monkeys. And all the way Kala carried her little dead baby hugged closely to her breast. It was shortly after noon when they reached a ridge overlooking the beach where below them lay the tiny cottage which was Kerchak's goal. He had seen many of his kind go to their deaths before the loud noise made by the little black stick in the hands of the strange white ape who lived in that wonderful lair, and Kerchak had made up his brute mind to own that death-dealing contrivance, and to explore the interior of the mysterious den. He wanted, very, very much, to feel his teeth sink into the neck of the queer animal that he had learned to hate and fear, and because of this, he came often with his tribe to reconnoiter, waiting for a time when the white ape should be off his guard. Of late they had quit attacking, or even showing themselves; for every time they had done so in the past the little stick had roared out its terrible message of death to some member of the tribe. Today there was no sign of the man about, and from where they watched they could see that the cabin door was open. Slowly, cautiously, and noiselessly they crept
| 1 |
2 |
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt
| 58 |
of his lines made a sudden flush rise to his painted cheeks. He saw her serious alluring eyes watching him from among the audience and their image at once swept away his scruples, leaving his will compact. Another nature seemed to have been lent him: the infection of the excitement and youth about him entered into and transformed his moody mistrustfulness. For one rare moment he seemed to be clothed in the real apparel of boyhood: and, as he stood in the wings among the other players, he shared the common mirth amid which the drop scene was hauled upwards by two able-bodied priests with violent jerks and all awry. A few moments after he found himself on the stage amid the garish gas and the dim scenery, acting before the innumerable faces of the void. It surprised him to see that the play which he had known at rehearsals for a disjointed lifeless thing had suddenly assumed a life of its own. It seemed now to play itself, he and his fellow actors aiding it with their parts. When the curtain fell on the last scene he heard the void filled with applause and, through a rift in a side scene, saw the simple body before which he had acted magically deformed, the void of faces breaking at all points and falling asunder into busy groups. He left the stage quickly and rid himself of his mummery and passed out through the chapel into the college garden. Now that the play was over his nerves cried for some further adventure. He hurried onwards as if to overtake it. The doors of the theatre were all open and the audience had emptied out. On the lines which he had fancied the moorings of an ark a few lanterns swung in the night breeze, flickering cheerlessly. He mounted the steps from the garden in haste, eager that some prey should not elude him, and forced his way through the crowd in the hall and past the two jesuits who stood watching the exodus and bowing and shaking hands with the visitors. He pushed onward nervously, feigning a still greater haste and faintly conscious of the smiles and stares and nudges which his powdered head left in its wake. When he came out on the steps he saw his family waiting for him at the first lamp. In a glance he noted that every figure of the group was familiar and ran down the steps angrily. --I have to leave a message down in George's Street, he said to his father quickly. I'll be home after you. Without waiting for his father's questions he ran across the road and began to walk at breakneck speed down the hill. He hardly knew where he was walking. Pride and hope and desire like crushed herbs in his heart sent up vapours of maddening incense before the eyes of his mind. He strode down the hill amid the tumult of sudden-risen vapours of wounded pride and fallen hope and baffled desire. They streamed upwards before his anguished
| 1 |
13 |
Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey.txt
| 77 |
this afternoon. “You feel railroaded?” he whispers. I nod. He closes his eyes and runs his hand through his hair in agitation. “I just want to give you the world, Ana, everything and anything you want. And save you from it, too. Keep you safe. But I also want everyone to know you’re mine. I pan- icked today when I got your e-mail. Why didn’t you tell me about your name?” I flush. He has a point. “I only thought about it while we were on our honeymoon, and well, I didn’t want to burst the bubble, and I forgot about it. I only remembered yesterday even- ing. And then Jack . . . you know, it was distracting. I’m sorry, I should have told you or discussed it with you, but I could never seem to find the right time.” Christian’s intense gaze is unnerving. It’s as if he’s trying to will his way into my skull, but he says nothing. “Why did you panic?” I ask. 165/551 “I just don’t want you to slip through my fingers.” “For heaven’s sake, I’m not going anywhere. When are you going to get that through your incredibly thick skull? I. Love. You.” I wave my hand in the air like he does sometimes to emphasize my point. “More than . . . eyesight, space, or liberty.”1 His eyes widen. “A daughter’s love?” He gives me an ironic smile. “No,” I laugh, despite myself. “It’s the only quote that came to mind.” “Mad King Lear?” “Dear, dear Mad King Lear.” I caress his face, and he leans into my touch, closing his eyes. “Would you change your name to Christian Steele so everyone would know that you belong to me?” Christian’s eyes fly open, and he gazes at me as if I’ve just said the world is flat. He frowns. “Belong to you?” he murmurs, testing the words. “Mine.” “Yours,” he says, repeating the words we spoke in the playroom only yester- day. “Yes, I would. If it meant that much to you.” Oh my. “Does it mean that much to you?” “Yes.” He is unequivocal. “Okay.” I will do this for him. Give him the reassurance he still needs. “I thought you’d already agreed to this.” “Yes I have, but now we’ve discussed it further, I’m happier with my decision.” “Oh,” he mutters, surprised. Then he smiles his beautiful, boyish yes-I-am- really-kinda-young smile, and he takes my breath away. Grabbing me by my waist, he swings me around. I squeal and start to giggle, and I don’t know if he’s just happy or relieved or . . . what? “Mrs. Grey, do you know what this means to me?” “I do now.” He leans down and kisses me, his fingers moving into my hair, holding me in place. “It means seven shades of Sunday,” he murmurs against my lips, and he runs his nose along mine. “You think?” I lean back to gaze at him. 166/551 “Certain promises were made. An offer extended, a deal brokered,” he whis- pers, his eyes sparkling with
| 1 |
45 |
Things Fall Apart.txt
| 88 |
"Go and burn your mothers' genitals," said one of the priests. The men were seized and beaten until they streamed with blood. After that nothing happened for a long time between the church and the clan. But stories were already gaining ground that the white man had not only brought a religion but also a government. It was said that they had built a place of judgment in Umuofia to protect the followers of their religion. It was even said that they had hanged one man who killed a missionary. Although such stories were now often told they looked like fairytales in Mbanta and did not as yet affect the relationship between the new church and the clan. There was no question of killing a missionary here, for Mr. Kiaga, despite his madness, was quite harmless. As for his converts, no one could kill them without having to flee from the clan, for in spite of their worthlessness they still belonged to the clan. And so nobody gave serious thought to the stories about the white man's government or the consequences of killing the Christians. If they became more troublesome than they already were they would simply be driven out of the clan. And the little church was at that moment too deeply absorbed in its own troubles to annoy the clan. It all began over the question of admitting outcasts. These outcasts, or osu, seeing that the new religion welcomed twins and such abominations, thought that it was possible that they would also be received. And so one Sunday two of them went into the church. There was an immediate stir, but so great was the work the new religion had done among the converts that they did not immediately leave the church when the outcasts came in. Those who found themselves nearest to them merely moved to another seat. It was a miracle. But it only lasted till the end of the service. The whole church raised a protest and was about to drive these people out, when Mr. Kiaga stopped them and began to explain. "Before God," he said, "there is no slave or free. We are all children of God and we must receive these our brothers." "You do not understand," said one of the converts. "What will the heathen say of us when they hear that we receive osu into our midst? They will laugh." "Let them laugh," said Mr. Kiaga. "God will laugh at them on the judgment day. Why do the nations rage and the peoples imagine a vain thing? He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision." "You do not understand," the convert maintained. "You are our teacher, and you can teach us the things of the new faith. But this is a matter which we know." And he told him what an osu was. He was a person dedicated to a god, a thing set apart--a taboo for ever, and his children after him. He could neither marry nor be married by the free-born. He was
| 1 |
8 |
David Copperfield.txt
| 31 |
and never near when not wanted; but his great claim to consideration was his respectability. He had not a pliant face, he had rather a stiff neck, rather a tight smooth head with short hair clinging to it at the sides, a soft way of speaking, with a peculiar habit of whispering the letter S so distinctly, that he seemed to use it oftener than any other man; but every peculiarity that he had he made respectable. If his nose had been upside-down, he would have made that respectable. He surrounded himself with an atmosphere of respectability, and walked secure in it. It would have been next to impossible to suspect him of anything wrong, he was so thoroughly respectable. Nobody could have thought of putting him in a livery, he was so highly respectable. To have imposed any derogatory work upon him, would have been to inflict a wanton insult on the feelings of a most respectable man. And of this, I noticed- the women-servants in the household were so intuitively conscious, that they always did such work themselves, and generally while he read the paper by the pantry fire. Such a self-contained man I never saw. But in that quality, as in every other he possessed, he only seemed to be the more respectable. Even the fact that no one knew his Christian name, seemed to form a part of his respectability. Nothing could be objected against his surname, Littimer, by which he was known. Peter might have been hanged, or Tom transported; but Littimer was perfectly respectable. It was occasioned, I suppose, by the reverend nature of respectability in the abstract, but I felt particularly young in this man's presence. How old he was himself, I could not guess - and that again went to his credit on the same score; for in the calmness of respectability he might have numbered fifty years as well as thirty. Littimer was in my room in the morning before I was up, to bring me that reproachful shaving-water, and to put out my clothes. When I undrew the curtains and looked out of bed, I saw him, in an equable temperature of respectability, unaffected by the east wind of January, and not even breathing frostily, standing my boots right and left in the first dancing position, and blowing specks of dust off my coat as he laid it down like a baby. I gave him good morning, and asked him what o'clock it was. He took out of his pocket the most respectable hunting-watch I ever saw, and preventing the spring with his thumb from opening far, looked in at the face as if he were consulting an oracular oyster, shut it up again, and said, if I pleased, it was half past eight. 'Mr. Steerforth will be glad to hear how you have rested, sir.' 'Thank you,' said I, 'very well indeed. Is Mr. Steerforth quite well?' 'Thank you, sir, Mr. Steerforth is tolerably well.' Another of his characteristics - no use of superlatives. A cool calm medium always. 'Is there
| 1 |
58 |
Confidence_-a-Novel.txt
| 70 |
the presidency wasn’t a grift.” As he spoke, there was a confusion of footsteps above us: a fight, maybe, or two people dancing very poorly. “You could say, ‘Oh, that humanizes Bill Clinton,’ ” he said over the stumbling. “But what it really does is make him someone who’s fully cognizant of his power and who uses it to get exactly what he feels he deserves. And then how about that next presidency, right?” I nodded and then remembered he probably couldn’t see me either. “Right.” “That was an explicitly criminal presidency. Iraq, Halliburton, jingoism. And the whole thing about crime is it’s a scarcity versus abundance kind of thing.” There were two types of criminal according to Orson: the fake and the real. The fake criminal is shaped by scarcity, a Jean Valjean–type bread stealer. The real criminal is shaped by abundance, invading foreign countries for their oil, buying penthouses, killing people who threaten their supremacy. “The thing about capitalism,” he said, and I could feel him shifting toward me and away again, “is that it wants to tell lies about scarcity. It assumes that everything is scarce for everyone, and that everyone is scrambling at all times to make things less scarce, and that the most effective scramblers are the ones most deserving of the spoils they earn, or appear to earn. Most deserving of abundance.” I nodded again, relishing the boom of his voice. “But the ones with abundance aren’t the most effective scramblers. The most effective scramblers are the guys hustling to sell vials of crack in a two-block radius of where they were born. They’re sex workers who know how to cheat a dumb client out of an extra twenty dollars. They’re jacking Ferraris and robbing banks and counting cards. These aren’t people you’d expect to find at the top in the way, you know, you’d find Bush Jr. and Clinton. They’re working hard. They’re scrambling more effectively than anyone.” “Exactly,” I intoned. “If you want to spot a real criminal,” he continued on, seemingly without having heard me, “you need to look for the hoarding, the abundance, the dark triad shit. Because otherwise you’ve got these fake-scarcity criminals. And those aren’t criminals—those are the most gifted scramblers.” He sighed as though his speech had exhausted him. “Okay, you can turn it back on.” I clicked the flashlight back on and he was facing the grid again, his hands on his hips. He toggled the switch labeled “Apartment 4C”—ours—and turned to the side, frowning. There was no surging noise as there had been for Apartment 1B. “The other wires,” he muttered to himself, and gestured for the scissors he’d instructed me to bring. I handed them to him and watched as he snipped two sets of wires between our switch and that of the apartment across the hall from us, wrapping the frayed copper edges of one set around the other. Then he toggled our switch again: a surge. “We can make Hot Pockets tonight,” he said, and grinned. * * * What’s he thinking of majoring
| 0 |
46 |
To Kill a Mockingbird.txt
| 75 |
church...." That Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of her having command of two languages. "Cal," I asked, "why do you talk nigger-talk to the- to your folks when you know it's not right?" "Well, in the first place I'm black-" "That doesn't mean you hafta talk that way when you know better," said Jem. Calpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her hat down carefully over her ears. "It's right hard to say," she said. "Suppose you and Scout talked colored-folks' talk at home it'd be out of place, wouldn't it? Now what if I talked white-folks' talk at church, and with my neighbors? They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses." "But Cal, you know better," I said. "It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin' more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your mouth shut or talk their language." "Cal, can I come to see you sometimes?" She looked down at me. "See me, honey? You see me every day." "Out to your house," I said. "Sometimes after work? Atticus can get me." "Any time you want to," she said. "We'd be glad to have you." We were on the sidewalk by the Radley Place. "Look on the porch yonder," Jem said. I looked over to the Radley Place, expecting to see its phantom occupant sunning himself in the swing. The swing was empty. "I mean our porch," said Jem. I looked down the street. Enarmored, upright, uncompromising, Aunt Alexandra was sitting in a rocking chair exactly as if she had sat there every day of her life. 13 "Put my bag in the front bedroom, Calpurnia," was the first thing Aunt Alexandra said. "Jean Louise, stop scratching your head," was the second thing she said. Calpurnia picked up Aunty's heavy suitcase and opened the door. "I'll take it," said Jem, and took it. I heard the suitcase hit the bedroom floor with a thump. The sound had a dull permanence about it. "Have you come for a visit, Aunty?" I asked. Aunt Alexandra's visits from the Landing were rare, and she traveled in state. She owned a bright green square Buick and a black chauffeur, both kept in an unhealthy state of tidiness, but today they were nowhere to be seen. "Didn't your father tell you?" she asked. Jem and I shook our heads. "Probably he forgot. He's not in yet, is he?" "Nome, he doesn't usually get back till late afternoon," said Jem. "Well, your father and I decided it was time I came to stay with you for a while." "For a while" in Maycomb meant anything from three days to thirty years.
| 1 |
78 |
Pineapple Street.txt
| 7 |
bingo chart went up in the bathroom? If a thirty-three-year-old music teacher takes possession of a teenager’s body, does he take agency from her muscles as well? Does he fray the line between body and mind? Perhaps not entirely. But enough to make an inch, three inches, five inches of difference? She springs, but she hesitates slightly, doesn’t push off with the legs of a ten-year-old but with legs that have been told what they are until she believes it. She knows, in the way you always know, in any bad fall, that the earth is rising for you, and she manages to twist. Not to right herself, but to turn like a barbershop pole so it’s the back of her head that hits the pool rim. And not even the outer rim, but the inner one, the one under a few centimeters of water. Her head leaves no dent; her blood billows through the water in faint pink clouds. She struggles a minute, drifting in and out of consciousness. She can’t pull herself out but she follows the lane line to the shallow end, draping herself on the green and gold rings, nestling them under her chin, slipping under, coming up, slipping under, coming up on the far side, but now something has her hair, something’s pulling her head back and down, and the easiest thing, the only thing, is to sleep. 20 After our interview, Britt had sent me a link to a YouTube video from a man named Dane Rubra. He had a whole channel, in fact, that seemed to be ninety percent about Thalia. At two a.m., suddenly wide awake, I decided I could enter this particular rabbit warren for exactly one hour, after which I’d sleep. Dane Rubra looked, and I’m putting this gently, like he hadn’t seen the sun or eaten a vegetable or gotten laid in a decade. A pastier Norman Bates with stringier hair and doughier cheeks. According to his first video, which I had to scroll to find, he was “between jobs” when he first saw the Dateline special, and he had an epiphany, felt he could contribute. When he said Thalia’s name, oozed over the vowels, I felt the skin on my neck tighten. He was about my age, and I imagined he fancied that if only he and Thalia had crossed paths, he could have saved her, bedded her, won her love. He showed a yearbook photo of Puja Sharma and said, “This one wasn’t as pretty as her friend, and you have to think, that could have been a source of jealousy. Miss Sharma is a real possibility here. Someone we can never question, unfortunately.” I nearly slammed my laptop shut at that one, at the gall, the wrongheadedness, the slime. Puja might have been a hanger-on—might have used Thalia’s kindness as entry into the crowd that spent Feb Week at Mike Stiles’s ski house, that went to the Vineyard on long weekends—but she was devastated by Thalia’s death. Two weeks afterward, Puja took off on foot in the middle
| 0 |
22 |
Lord of the Flies.txt
| 92 |
"You can take spears if you want but I shan't. What's the good? I'll have to be led like a dog, anyhow. Yes, laugh. Go on, laugh. There's them on this island as would laugh at anything. And what happened? What's grownups goin' to think? Young Simon was murdered. And there was that other kid what had a mark on his face. Who's seen him since we first come here?" "Piggy! Stop a minute!" "I got the conch. I'm going to that Jack Merridew an' tell him, I am." "You'll get hurt." "What can he do more than he has? I'll tell him what's what. You let me carry the conch, Ralph. I'll show him the one thing he hasn't got." Piggy paused for a moment and peered round at the dim figures. The shape of the old assembly, trodden in the grass, listened to him. "I'm going to him with this conch in my hands. I'm going to hold it out. Look, I'm goin' to say, you're stronger than I am and you haven't got asthma. You can see, I'm goin' to say, and with both eyes. But I don't ask for my glasses back, not as a favor. I don't ask you to be a sport, I'll say, not because you're strong, but because what's right's right. Give me my glasses, I'm going to say--you got to!" Piggy ended, flushed and trembling. He pushed the conch quickly into Ralph's hands as though in a hurry to be rid of it and wiped the tears from his eyes. The green light was gentle about them and the conch lay at Ralph's feet, fragile and white. A single drop of water that had escaped Piggy's fingers now flashed on the delicate curve like a star. At last Ralph sat up straight and drew back his hair. "All right. I mean--you can try if you like. We'll go with you." "He'll be painted," said Sam, timidly. "You know how he'll be--" "--he won't think much of us--" "--if he gets waxy we've had it--" Ralph scowled at Sam. Dimly he remembered something Simon had said to him once, by the rocks. "Don't be silly," he said. And then he added quickly, "Let's go." He held out the conch to Piggy who flushed, this time with pride. "You must carry it." "When we're ready I'll carry it--" Piggy sought in his mind for words to convey his passionate willingness to carry the conch against all odds. "I don't mind. I'll be glad, Ralph, only I'll have to be led." Ralph put the conch back on the shining log. "We better eat and then get ready." They made their way to the devastated fruit trees. Piggy was helped to his food and found some by touch. While they ate, Ralph thought of the afternoon. "We'll be like we were. We'll wash--" Sam gulped down a mouthful and protested. "But we bathe every day!" Ralph looked at the filthy objects before him and sighed. "We ought to comb our hair. Only it's too long." "I've got
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93 |
The-Silver-Ladies-Do-Lunch.txt
| 47 |
ask him. At the moment, everyone else was gushing about art and she and the stranger smiled knowingly. ‘My favourite artist is Lowry. I love the political impact of his paintings.’ The politics lecturer finished her soup. ‘But then I’m from Manchester.’ ‘I’m not from New York, but if you want a political artist, then Basquiat is your man,’ the politics lecturer’s husband insisted. ‘Oh, no.’ The author’s wife pulled a sour face. ‘Basquiat was just a graffiti artist with no skill.’ ‘Do you think so? I like his work…’ Francine began to collect bowls, her face troubled. The man sitting opposite Minnie looked bemused and Minnie copied his expression. ‘American art often leaves me unimpressed,’ the politics lecturer suggested. ‘Jackson Pollock – what is that all about?’ ‘And American playwrights too – I can’t name a good one,’ the author said bluntly. ‘Nor can I…’ his wife agreed. ‘There’s Miller – Tennessee Williams – Kushner—’ Minnie began. ‘Well, I like them all,’ Francine said quickly as she moved from the table and Melvyn began to refill glasses. Minnie watched the man with the cloud of hair as he observed everyone, his eyes bright behind glasses. She leaned forwards – she could sense a storm coming so, as the Szechuan beef arrived with all the trimmings, she said mischievously, ‘I love American plays – I prefer a good Tennessee Williams any day to, say, a mediocre Noel Coward, who was writing around the same time – I like a play I can get my teeth into.’ ‘Oh, I can’t agree.’ The politics lecturer was adamant. ‘Cat on a Hot Tin Roof – horrible! – and Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf – all that shouting.’ ‘And Eugene O’Neill too, those dead-enders who live in a flop house… just, no.’ The author’s wife shuddered. ‘More wine, everyone?’ Melvyn began filling glasses quickly. Francine took over hurriedly. ‘Let’s talk about something else – Minnie, have you read anything interesting lately? Minnie is the most cultured of us all—’ ‘In fact,’ the author cut across Francine, ‘I don’t like American literature. Any of it.’ ‘Indeed,’ the politics lecturer laughed. ‘And American politics – oh, my goodness.’ ‘Ah, we might discuss…’ Melvyn began. Francine interrupted. ‘I hope the beef is good.’ ‘Perfect… you must give me the recipe.’ The author’s wife smiled. ‘Back to America, though – the food – I don’t think I’ve tasted worse.’ The man with the cloud of hair leaned forward. He was openly amused now. Minnie caught his eye and raised both brows. The author laughed. ‘I hate to say it, but nothing good has come out of the USA recently.’ The politics lecturer’s husband guffawed. ‘Not since Marilyn Monroe.’ He was pleased with himself. ‘And I always thought our Diana Dors was a better actress…’ Minnie put down her knife and fork deliberately and gave a loud sigh: it had gone far enough. ‘This music is really good. What is it?’ Melvyn was relieved to change the subject. ‘It’s Buddy Bolden…’ ‘Wasn’t he the father of jazz music?’ Minnie waved
| 0 |
73 |
Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt
| 9 |
were so many things she couldn’t wrap her head around. So many things she didn’t know. But she knew Alante. She knew the power players. She knew there was only one group of women powerful enough to guarantee passage to the Golden City of Nanzy and inspire the hatred of even the shadiest crook in the Silts. It was time to stop pretending this was just any other case she’d worked. Her gut roiled with dread. She was going to have to visit the Nine. CHAPTER XIV THE HOUSE OF NINE THE HISTORY BOOKS were hazy on the details, but the consensus was that the gods had died long before the old world Collapsed. Little was known about the time before the Collapse, but the remnants of the old world lay everywhere. Spiky metallic structures thousands of years old sticking out of deserts and lakes, paved roads in the middle of lush forests, found objects made of strange materials that might be art or technology or children’s toys. And of course, the texts, written in languages old but recognizable, found on metal plaques and chipped marble. Each historian and scientist seemed to have a different theory about what had brought on the Collapse, but they all agreed on its major turning point: the once singular moon split into three—Pandia, Nemea, and Ersa—causing the sea level to rise globally. Whole nations were swallowed by dark waters, and the few remaining coastal cities faced a tide that sank them half underwater every night. At first, people took refuge at higher altitudes, waiting for the tide to settle. But despite every scientist’s prediction, despite the very laws of nature, the shifting earth and sea never calmed. Instead came a never-ending circle of catastrophes: neo-monsoons and heat storms, chimerini coming out of the waters, leviathans breaking out of the ice farther up north, enormous and extremely hard to kill—and the appearance of other-born, more and more with every generation. A new order rose from the chaos, in the form of other-born. Horae-born who could alter the passage of time, muse-born who could see past and future in the arts, moira-born who could create and sever bonds. With the help of other-born, the Coastal Barrier was constructed, dams were built, icebergs were chased for the fresh water they could provide. Fertile valleys and terraced hills were formed; over-water trams and entire stilt towns were raised from the mud. The leviathans were hunted to extinction, the chimerini dissected and used for parts. Humanity started thriving again, conglomerating in city-nations, reestablishing trade and craft, electing new representatives. But there was always a whisper in the air, a murmur shared when the candles were snuffed out: the Collapse was the gods’ punishment. Humankind might be surviving at the moment, but the gods would always win in the end. * * * “I didn’t take you for a doomsayer,” Edei said, his voice teasing. There was a newfound easiness between them today. They had eaten and washed dishes together, tended to their wounds, and marveled over bees and fairy tales, and
| 0 |
8 |
David Copperfield.txt
| 80 |
considered an acceptable course of proceeding. I have already said, sir, that I have had my suspicions of Miss Spenlow, in reference to David Copperfield, for some time. I have frequently endeavoured to find decisive corroboration of those suspicions, but without effect. I have therefore forborne to mention them to Miss Spenlow's father'; looking severely at him- 'knowing how little disposition there usually is in such cases, to acknowledge the conscientious discharge of duty.' Mr. Spenlow seemed quite cowed by the gentlemanly sternness of Miss Murdstone's manner, and deprecated her severity with a conciliatory little wave of his hand. 'On my return to Norwood, after the period of absence occasioned by my brother's marriage,' pursued Miss Murdstone in a disdainful voice, 'and on the return of Miss Spenlow from her visit to her friend Miss Mills, I imagined that the manner of Miss Spenlow gave me greater occasion for suspicion than before. Therefore I watched Miss Spenlow closely.' Dear, tender little Dora, so unconscious of this Dragon's eye! 'Still,' resumed Miss Murdstone, 'I found no proof until last night. It appeared to me that Miss Spenlow received too many letters from her friend Miss Mills; but Miss Mills being her friend with her father's full concurrence,' another telling blow at Mr. Spenlow, 'it was not for me to interfere. If I may not be permitted to allude to the natural depravity of the human heart, at least I may - I must - be permitted, so far to refer to misplaced confidence.' Mr. Spenlow apologetically murmured his assent. 'Last evening after tea,' pursued Miss Murdstone, 'I observed the little dog starting, rolling, and growling about the drawing-room, worrying something. I said to Miss Spenlow, "Dora, what is that the dog has in his mouth? It's paper." Miss Spenlow immediately put her hand to her frock, gave a sudden cry, and ran to the dog. I interposed, and said, "Dora, my love, you must permit me." ' Oh Jip, miserable Spaniel, this wretchedness, then, was your work! 'Miss Spenlow endeavoured,' said Miss Murdstone, 'to bribe me with kisses, work-boxes, and small articles of jewellery - that, of course, I pass over. The little dog retreated under the sofa on my approaching him, and was with great difficulty dislodged by the fire-irons. Even when dislodged, he still kept the letter in his mouth; and on my endeavouring to take it from him, at the imminent risk of being bitten, he kept it between his teeth so pertinaciously as to suffer himself to be held suspended in the air by means of the document. At length I obtained possession of it. After perusing it, I taxed Miss Spenlow with having many such letters in her possession; and ultimately obtained from her the packet which is now in David Copperfield's hand.' Here she ceased; and snapping her reticule again, and shutting her mouth, looked as if she might be broken, but could never be bent. 'You have heard Miss Murdstone,' said Mr. Spenlow, turning to me. 'I beg to ask, Mr. Copperfield, if you have anything
| 1 |
43 |
The Turn of the Screw.txt
| 68 |
of the candle as if the question were as irrelevant, or at any rate as impersonal, as Mrs. Marcet or nine-times-nine. "Oh, but you know," she quite adequately answered, "that you might come back, you dear, and that you HAVE!" And after a little, when she had got into bed, I had, for a long time, by almost sitting on her to hold her hand, to prove that I recognized the pertinence of my return. You may imagine the general complexion, from that moment, of my nights. I repeatedly sat up till I didn't know when; I selected moments when my roommate unmistakably slept, and, stealing out, took noiseless turns in the passage and even pushed as far as to where I had last met Quint. But I never met him there again; and I may as well say at once that I on no other occasion saw him in the house. I just missed, on the staircase, on the other hand, a different adventure. Looking down it from the top I once recognized the presence of a woman seated on one of the lower steps with her back presented to me, her body half-bowed and her head, in an attitude of woe, in her hands. I had been there but an instant, however, when she vanished without looking round at me. I knew, nonetheless, exactly what dreadful face she had to show; and I wondered whether, if instead of being above I had been below, I should have had, for going up, the same nerve I had lately shown Quint. Well, there continued to be plenty of chance for nerve. On the eleventh night after my latest encounter with that gentleman-- they were all numbered now--I had an alarm that perilously skirted it and that indeed, from the particular quality of its unexpectedness, proved quite my sharpest shock. It was precisely the first night during this series that, weary with watching, I had felt that I might again without laxity lay myself down at my old hour. I slept immediately and, as I afterward knew, till about one o'clock; but when I woke it was to sit straight up, as completely roused as if a hand had shook me. I had left a light burning, but it was now out, and I felt an instant certainty that Flora had extinguished it. This brought me to my feet and straight, in the darkness, to her bed, which I found she had left. A glance at the window enlightened me further, and the striking of a match completed the picture. The child had again got up--this time blowing out the taper, and had again, for some purpose of observation or response, squeezed in behind the blind and was peering out into the night. That she now saw-- as she had not, I had satisfied myself, the previous time--was proved to me by the fact that she was disturbed neither by my reillumination nor by the haste I made to get into slippers and into a wrap. Hidden, protected, absorbed, she evidently rested on
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16 |
Great Expectations.txt
| 17 |
Boar in our town. For all that I knew this perfectly well, I still felt as if it were not safe to let the coach-office be out of my sight longer than five minutes at a time; and in this condition of unreason I had performed the first half-hour of a watch of four or five hours, when Wemmick ran against me. "Halloa, Mr. Pip," said he; "how do you do? I should hardly have thought this was your beat." I explained that I was waiting to meet somebody who was coming up by coach, and I inquired after the Castle and the Aged. "Both flourishing thankye," said Wemmick, "and particularly the Aged. He's in wonderful feather. He'll be eighty-two next birthday. I have a notion of firing eighty-two times, if the neighbourhood shouldn't complain, and that cannon of mine should prove equal to the pressure. However, this is not London talk. where do you think I am going to?" "To the office?" said I, for he was tending in that direction. "Next thing to it," returned Wemmick, "I am going to Newgate. We are in a banker's-parcel case just at present, and I have been down the road taking as squint at the scene of action, and thereupon must have a word or two with our client." "Did your client commit the robbery?" I asked. "Bless your soul and body, no," answered Wemmick, very drily. "But he is accused of it. So might you or I be. Either of us might be accused of it, you know." "Only neither of us is," I remarked. "Yah!" said Wemmick, touching me on the breast with his forefinger; "you're a deep one, Mr. Pip! Would you like to have a look at Newgate? Have you time to spare?" I had so much time to spare, that the proposal came as a relief, notwithstanding its irreconcilability with my latent desire to keep my eye on the coach-office. Muttering that I would make the inquiry whether I had time to walk with him, I went into the office, and ascertained from the clerk with the nicest precision and much to the trying of his temper, the earliest moment at which the coach could be expected - which I knew beforehand, quite as well as he. I then rejoined Mr. Wemmick, and affecting to consult my watch and to be surprised by the information I had received, accepted his offer. We were at Newgate in a few minutes, and we passed through the lodge where some fetters were hanging up on the bare walls among the prison rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time, jails were much neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrong-doing - and which is always its heaviest and longest punishment - was still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavour of their soup. It was visiting time when Wemmick took
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88 |
The-Housekeepers.txt
| 64 |
“Dinah?” “How do you remember which neighborhood I come from?” “You told me.” She frowned. “Ages ago. Years back.” Some understanding crossed his face. “I remember everything when it comes to you,” he said. Mrs. King remembered how it used to be, when she was a house-parlormaid, back when William arrived. Of course the girls went mad for him—half of the men, too, come to that. William knew this, and he handled it gently. He didn’t let it turn his head. He kept himself to himself—he was hard to read, same as she was. The first time their hands touched, they were both buttoned up in their gloves. He’d taken a breath, a deep one, as if steadying himself. They kept it secret, whatever it was between them. They didn’t even call it love for years. It was their thing, theirs alone. On their night walks they skirted Whitechapel, and he pressed her, curious: tell me who you are, tell me where you come from. “Who cares?” she said, laughing. “Let me be a mystery.” She led him down the old street, right past Mr. Parker’s house, in silence. Yellow-gray brick, and a broken lamppost, and a shadowy boy flipping ha’pennies at the end of the lane. She must have gone silent, fretting, remembering Mother. He’d clocked it, yet he didn’t say anything; he didn’t want to cause her pain. I remember everything when it comes to you. Those words made her throat dry. “Don’t repeat that to anyone.” He stared right back. “Which part?” “Any of it.” She closed up her face, turned her back on him. She could feel it: danger, pulsing through the garden. 18 Tilney Street, Mayfair. Mrs. Bone had rented lodgings for them on a side road off Park Lane, in order to maintain the closest possible presence to the de Vries residence. “Can she afford it?” Mrs. King murmured when they first inspected their new lodgings. “Why couldn’t she afford it?” said Winnie. Mrs. King’s expression smoothed out. “No reason.” Now Winnie sat in the parlor with a mountain of fabric, sewing tunics. She frowned, struggling with the machine, which whirred and rattled and threatened to destroy her faith in herself. She wasn’t making nearly enough progress. They needed to dress at least sixty men. She was barely a third of the way through. She called through to the bedroom. “How are you getting on in there, Hephzibah?” Hephzibah’s voice came back, rich and imperious. “Call me Lady Montagu!” Mrs. Bone had sent one of her own gigantic-looking mirrors to Tilney Street, and they’d propped it up at the end of the bed. Winnie peeked around the door. Hephzibah was examining herself, ruffled and rippling, awash with pink silks. A hat triple-barreled with roses floated merrily on her head. “I’m radiant,” she said. “You look like a regular Venus,” said Winnie, with care. Hephzibah eyed her beadily. “Because of the pink?” She sniffed. “Yes, I like that.” Winnie approached carefully. She touched Hephzibah’s neck, checked the buttons on the back of the dress. Studied the photograph
| 0 |
0 |
1984.txt
| 5 |
half your life before the Revolution. In 1925, for instance, you were already grown up. Would you say from what you can remember, that life in 1925 was better than it is now, or worse? If you could choose, would you prefer to live then or now?' The old man looked meditatively at the darts board. He finished up his beer, more slowly than before. When he spoke it was with a tolerant philosophical air, as though the beer had mellowed him. 'I know what you expect me to say,' he said. 'You expect me to say as I'd sooner be young again. Most people'd say they'd sooner be young, if you arst' 'em. You got your 'ealth and strength when you're young. When you get to my time of life you ain't never well. I suffer something wicked from my feet, and my bladder's jest terrible. Six and seven times a night it 'as me out of bed. On the other 'and, there's great advantages in being a old man. You ain't got the same worries. No truck with women, and that's a great thing. I ain't 'ad a woman for near on thirty year, if you'd credit it. Nor wanted to, what's more.' Winston sat back against the window-sill. It was no use going on. He was about to buy some more beer when the old man suddenly got up and shuffled rapidly into the stinking urinal at the side of the room. The extra half-litre was already working on him. Winston sat for a minute or two gazing at his empty glass, and hardly noticed when his feet carried him out into the street again. Within twenty years at the most, he reflected, the huge and simple question, 'Was life better before the Revolution than it is now?' would have ceased once and for all to be answerable. But in effect it was unanswerable even now, since the few scattered survivors from the ancient world were incapable of comparing one age with another. They remembered a million useless things, a quarrel with a workmate, a hunt for a lost bicycle pump, the expression on a long-dead sister's face, the swirls of dust on a windy morning seventy years ago: but all the relevant facts were outside the range of their vision. They were like the ant, which can see small objects but not large ones. And when memory failed and written records were falsified--when that happened, the claim of the Party to have improved the conditions of human life had got to be accepted, because there did not exist, and never again could exist, any standard against which it could be tested. At this moment his train of thought stopped abruptly. He halted and looked up. He was in a narrow street, with a few dark little shops, interspersed among dwelling-houses. Immediately above his head there hung three discoloured metal balls which looked as if they had once been gilded. He seemed to know the place. Of course! He was standing outside the junk-shop where he had bought the
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48 |
Wuthering Heights.txt
| 11 |
a long letter which I considered odd, coming from the pen of a bride just out of the honey- moon. I'll read it, for I keep it yet. Any relic of the dead is precious if they were valued living. DEAR ELLEN, it begins, I came last night to Wuther- ing Heights, and heard for the first time that Catherine has been, and is yet, very ill. I must not write to her, I suppose, and my brother is either too angry or too dis- tressed to answer what I sent him. Still, I must write to somebody, and the only choice left me is you. Inform Edgar that I'd give the world to see his face again---that my heart returned to Thrushcross Grange in twenty-four hours after I left it, and is there at this moment, full of warm feelings for him and Catherine. I can't follow it, though (those words are underlined); they need not expect me; and they may draw what con- clusions they please, taking care, however, to lay noth- ing at the door of my weak will or deficient affection. The remainder of the letter is for yourself alone. I want to ask you two questions; the first is---How did you contrive to preserve the common sympathies of human nature when you resided here? I cannot recog- nize any sentiment which those around share with me. The second question I have great interest in; it is this----Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I shan't tell my reasons for making this inquiry, but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married---that is, when you call to see me; and you must call, Ellen, very soon. Don't write, but come, and bring me something from Edgar. Now you shall hear how I have been received in my new home, as I am led to imagine the Heights will be. It is to amuse myself that I dwell on such subjects as the lack of external comforts; they never occupy my thoughts, except at the moment when I miss them. I should laugh and dance for joy if I found their absence was the total of my miseries, and the rest was an un- natural dream. The sun set behind the Grange as we turned on to the moors: by that I judged it to be six o'clock; and my companion halted half an hour to inspect the park and the gardens, and probably the place itself, as well as he could; so it was dark when we dismounted in the paved yard of the farmhouse, and your old fellow-serv- ant Joseph issued out to receive us by the light of a dip candle. He did it with a courtesy that redounded to his credit. His first act was to elevate his torch to a level with my face, squint malignantly, project his under lip, and turn away. Then he took the two horses and led them into the stables, reappearing for the purpose of
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46 |
To Kill a Mockingbird.txt
| 38 |
heard Dill's step in the hall, so Calpurnia left Atticus's uneaten breakfast on the table. Between rabbit-bites Dill told us of Miss Rachel's reaction to last night, which was: if a man like Atticus Finch wants to butt his head against a stone wall it's his head. "I'da got her told," growled Dill, gnawing a chicken leg, "but she didn't look much like tellin' this morning. Said she was up half the night wonderin' where I was, said she'da had the sheriff after me but he was at the hearing." "Dill, you've got to stop goin' off without tellin' her," said Jem. "It just aggravates her." Dill sighed patiently. "I told her till I was blue in the face where I was goin'- she's just seein' too many snakes in the closet. Bet that woman drinks a pint for breakfast every morning- know she drinks two glasses full. Seen her." "Don't talk like that, Dill," said Aunt Alexandra. "It's not becoming to a child. It's- cynical." "I ain't cynical, Miss Alexandra. Tellin' the truth's not cynical, is it?" "The way you tell it, it is." Jem's eyes flashed at her, but he said to Dill, "Let's go. You can take that runner with you." When we went to the front porch, Miss Stephanie Crawford was busy telling it to Miss Maudie Atkinson and Mr. Avery. They looked around at us and went on talking. Jem made a feral noise in his throat. I wished for a weapon. "I hate grown folks lookin' at you," said Dill. "Makes you feel like you've done something." Miss Maudie yelled for Jem Finch to come there. Jem groaned and heaved himself up from the swing. "We'll go with you," Dill said. Miss Stephanie's nose quivered with curiosity. She wanted to know who all gave us permission to go to court- she didn't see us but it was all over town this morning that we were in the Colored balcony. Did Atticus put us up there as a sort of-? Wasn't it right close up there with all those-? Did Scout understand all the-? Didn't it make us mad to see our daddy beat? "Hush, Stephanie." Miss Maudie's diction was deadly. "I've not got all the morning to pass on the porch- Jem Finch, I called to find out if you and your colleagues can eat some cake. Got up at five to make it, so you better say yes. Excuse us, Stephanie. Good morning, Mr. Avery." There was a big cake and two little ones on Miss Maudie's kitchen table. There should have been three little ones. It was not like Miss Maudie to forget Dill, and we must have shown it. But we understood when she cut from the big cake and gave the slice to Jem. As we ate, we sensed that this was Miss Maudie's way of saying that as far as she was concerned, nothing had changed. She sat quietly in a kitchen chair, watching us. Suddenly she spoke: "Don't fret, Jem. Things are never as bad as they seem." Indoors, when
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20 |
Jane Eyre.txt
| 11 |
i s j u s t b a n d a g e d . I m u s t l o o k t o t h i s o t h e r w o u n d i n t h e a r m ; s h e h a s h a d h e r t e e t h h e r e t o o , I t h i n k . " " S h e s u c k e d t h e b l o o d ; s h e s a i d s h e ' d d r a i n m y h e a r t , " s a i d M a s o n . I s a w M r . R o c h e s t e r s h u d d e r ; a s i n g u l a r l y m a r k e d e x p r e s s i o n o f d i s g u s t , h o r r o r , h a t r e d , w a r p e d h i s c o u n t e n a n c e a l m o s t t o d i s t o r t i o n ; b u t h e o n l y s a i d : " C o m e , b e s i l e n t , R i c h a r d , a n d n e v e r m i n d h e r g i b b e r i s h ; d o n ' t r e p e a t i t . " " I w i s h I c o u l d f o r g e t i t , " w a s t h e a n s w e r . " Y o u w i l l w h e n y o u a r e o u t o f t h e c o u n t r y : w h e n y o u g e t b a c k t o S p a n i s h T o w n y o u m a y t h i n k o f h e r a s d e a d a n d b u r i e d o r r a t h e r , y o u n e e d n o t t h i n k o f h e r a t a l l . " " I m p o s s i b l e t o f o r g e t t h i s n i g h t ! " " I t i s n o t i m p o s s i b l e ; h a v e s o m e e n e r g y , m a n . Y o u t h o u g h t y o u w e r e a s d e a d a s a h e r r i n g t w o h o u r s s i n c e , a n d y o u a r e a l l a l i v e a n d t a l k i n g n o w . T h e r e ! C a r t e r h a s d o n e w i t h y o n o r n e a r l y s o : I ' l l m a k e y o u d e c e n t i n a t r i c e , J a n e ; " ( h e t u r n e d t o m e f o r t h e f i r s t t i m e s i n c e h i s r e e n t r a n c e ) , " t a k e t h i s k e y ; g o d o w n i n t o m y b e d r o o m , a n d w a l k s t r a i g h t f o r w a r d i n t o m y d r e s s i n g - r o o m ; o p e n t h e t o p d r a w e r o f t h e w a r d r o b e a n d t a k e o u t a c l e a n s h i r t a n d n e c k - h a n d k e r c h i e f ; b r i n g t h e m h e r e ; a n d b e n i m b l e . " I w e n t , s o u g h t t h e r e p o s i t o r y h e h a d m e n t i o n e d , f o u n d t h e a r t i c l e s n a m e d , a n d r e t u r n e d w i t h t h e m . " N o w , " s a i d h e , " g o t o t h e o t h e r s i d e o f t h e b e d w h i l e I o r d e r h i s t o i l e t ; b u t d o n ' t l e a v e t h e r o o m ; y o u m a y b e w a n t e d a g a i n . " I r e t i r e d a s d i r e c t e d . " W a s a n y b o d y s t i r r i n g b e l o w w h e n y o u w e n t d o w n , J a n e ? " i n q u i r e d M r . R o c h e s t e r , p r e s e n t l y . " N o , s i r ; a l l w a s v e r y s t i l l . " " W e s h a l l g e t y o u o f f c a n n i l y , D i c k ; a n d i t w i l l b e b e t t e r , b o t h f o r y o u r s a k e a n d f o r t h a t o f t h e p o o r c r e a t u r e i n y o n d e r . I h a v e s t r i v e n l o n g t o a v o i d e x p o s u r e , a n d I s h o u l d n o t l i k e i t t o c o m e a t l a s t . H e r e , C a r t e r , h e l p h i m o n w i t h h i s w a i s t c o a t . W h e r e d i d y o u l e a v e y o u r f u r r e d c l o a k ? Y o u c a n ' t t r a v e l a m i l e w i t h o u t t h a t , I k n o w , i n t h i s d c o l d c l i m a t e . I n y o u r r o o m ? J a n e , r u n d o w n t o M r . M a s o n ' s r o o m , t h e o n e n e x t t o m i n e , a n d f e t c h a c l o a k y o u w i l l s e e t h e r e . " A g a i n I r a n , a n d a g a i n r e t u r n e d , b e a r i n g a n i m m e n s e m a n t l e l i n e d a n d e d g e d w i t h f u r . " N o w I ' v e a n o t h e r e r r a n d f o r y o u , " s a i d m y u n t i r i n g m a s t e r ; " y o u m u s t a w a y t o m y r o o m a g a i n . W h a t a m e r c y y o u a r e s h o d w i t h v e l v e t , J a n e ! a c l o d - h o p p i n g m e s s e n g e r w o u l d n e v e r d o a t t h i s j u n c t u r e . Y o u m u s t o p e n t h e m i d d l e d r a w e r o f m y t o i l e t - t a b l e , a n d t a k e o u t a l i t t l e v i a l a n d a l i t t l e g l a s s y o u w i l l f i n d t h e r e q u i c k ! " I f l e w t h i t h e r a n d b a c k , b r i n g i n g t h e d e s i r e d v e s s e l s .
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How to Sell a Haunted House.txt
| 88 |
and wet and alive. It clamped itself around her hand and squeezed so hard she felt blood pulse in her fingertips. Louise leapt to her feet and whatever it was came with her, a heavy lump clinging to the end of her arm, rippling and alive. It gave a single muscular pulse and slid a few inches up her wrist. Louise drew her hand back and flung her arm forward, hard, and her forearm got lighter and something flew across the room and thudded into the wall and bounced into the streetlight’s splash of light in the middle of the floor. Pupkin. you left me all alone you left me behind you tried to forget about me you left me in the dark Impossibly, without anyone moving him, he bent forward and climbed unsteadily onto his little nubbin legs. The empty sleeve of his puppet hole hung behind him like a tail. He puffed up his chest and turned his face to her and they looked at each other. Pupkin was back. And he hated her. His little plastic face stretched, his chin crumpled and popped as his tiny mouth opened wide, and he hissed at her. Then he surged forward, coming at her, body hunching and releasing fast, faster than the squirrels, leaving the spill of streetlight and entering the shadows, coming for her feet. no no no no no no no no no no She fell back onto her bed and pulled her legs up after her, but Pupkin scrambled up the blankets that hung to the floor. He couldn’t touch her, she’d die if he touched her, she couldn’t let him touch her, her heart trip-hammered against her ribs, she saw the top of his little pointed hood rise over the side of her bed like when she was a little girl, and Louise made a whimper in her throat like a little girl i am not a little girl The thought shot lightning up her spine. She leapt for the open door. She landed hard on one ankle and lurched to her right, almost falling, but she didn’t stop, she heard an angry hiss behind her and heard Pupkin drop to the carpet, and she ran out the door, sweeping up the office chair in one fluid movement behind her and hurling it backward, hoping to crush Pupkin. She heard the chair bang off the wall and clatter to the floor and she raced into the hall with nothing between her and the front door but darkness, passing the closed bathroom door, passing the workroom, seeing light from the patio doors on the carpet, and something sliced into her shins. She went down hard, reaching forward to break her fall, and her palms hit wooden bars, then carpet, and she fell in a tangle of sharp wooden edges. She tried to roll over, but her legs were trapped, then she realized: it was one of the dining room chairs, lying on its side. How had . . . Pupkin had dragged it into the hall. In case she
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Great Expectations.txt
| 81 |
was full of plans "for his gentleman's coming out strong, and like a gentleman," and urged me to begin speedily upon the pocket-book, which he had left in my possession. He considered the chambers and his own lodging as temporary residences, and advised me to look out at once for a "fashionable crib' near Hyde Park, in which he could have "a shake-down'. When he had made an end of his breakfast, and was wiping his knife on his leg, I said to him, without a word of preface: "After you were gone last night, I told my friend of the struggle that the soldiers found you engaged in on the marshes, when we came up. You remember?" "Remember!" said he. "I think so!" "We want to know something about that man - and about you. It is strange to know no more about either, and particularly you, than I was able to tell last night. Is not this as good a time as another for our knowing more?" "Well!" he said, after consideration. "You're on your oath, you know, Pip's comrade?" "Assuredly," replied Herbert. "As to anything I say, you know," he insisted. "The oath applies to all." "I understand it to do so." "And look'ee here! Wotever I done, is worked out and paid for," he insisted again. "So be it." He took out his black pipe and was going to fill it with negrohead, when, looking at the tangle of tobacco in his hand, he seemed to think it might perplex the thread of his narrative. He put it back again, stuck his pipe in a button-hole of his coat, spread a hand on each knee, and, after turning an angry eye on the fire for a few silent moments, looked round at us and said what follows. Chapter 42 "Dear boy and Pip's comrade. I am not a-going fur to tell you my life, like a song or a story-book. But to give it you short and handy, I'll put it at once into a mouthful of English. In jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail, in jail and out of jail. There, you got it. That's my life pretty much, down to such times as I got shipped off, arter Pip stood my friend. "I've been done everything to, pretty well - except hanged. I've been locked up, as much as a silver tea-kettle. I've been carted here and carted there, and put out of this town and put out of that town, and stuck in the stocks, and whipped and worried and drove. I've no more notion where I was born, than you have - if so much. I first become aware of myself, down in Essex, a thieving turnips for my living. Summun had run away from me - a man - a tinker - and he'd took the fire with him, and left me wery cold. "I know'd my name to be Magwitch, chrisen'd Abel. How did I know it? Much as I know'd the birds' names in the hedges
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Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt
| 35 |
Trillian quietly moved his hand before he tapped anything important. Whatever Zaphod's qualities of mind might include - dash, bravado, conceit - he was mechanically inept and could easily blow the ship up with an extravagant gesture. Trillian had come to suspect that the main reason why he had had such a wild and successful life that he never really understood the significance of anything he did. "Zaphod," she said patiently, "they were floating unprotected in open space ... you wouldn't want them to have died would you?" "Well, you know ... no. Not as such, but ..." "Not as such? Not die as such? But?" Trillian cocked her head on one side. "Well, maybe someone else might have picked them up later." "A second later and they would have been dead." "Yeah, so if you'd taken the trouble to think about the problem a bit longer it would have gone away." "You'd been happy to let them die?" "Well, you know, not happy as such, but ..." "Anyway," said Trillian, turning back to the controls, "I didn't pick them up." "What do you mean? Who picked them up then?" "The ship did." "Huh?" "The ship did. All by itself." "Huh?" "Whilst we were in Improbability Drive." "But that's incredible." "No Zaphod. Just very very improbable." "Er, yeah." "Look Zaphod," she said, patting his arm, "don't worry about the aliens. They're just a couple of guys I expect. I'll send the robot down to get them and bring them up here. Hey Marvin!" In the corner, the robot's head swung up sharply, but then wobbled about imperceptibly. It pulled itself up to its feet as if it was about five pounds heavier that it actually was, and made what an outside observer would have thought was a heroic effort to cross the room. It stopped in front of Trillian and seemed to stare through her left shoulder. "I think you ought to know I'm feeling very depressed," it said. Its voice was low and hopeless. "Oh God," muttered Zaphod and slumped into a seat. "Well," said Trillian in a bright compassionate tone, "here's something to occupy you and keep your mind off things." "It won't work," droned Marvin, "I have an exceptionally large mind." "Marvin!" warned Trillian. "Alright," said Marvin, "what do you want me to do?" "Go down to number two entry bay and bring the two aliens up here under surveillance." With a microsecond pause, and a finely calculated micromodulation of pitch and timbre - nothing you could actually take offence at - Marvin managed to convey his utter contempt and horror of all things human. "Just that?" he said. "Yes," said Trillian firmly. "I won't enjoy it," said Marvin. Zaphod leaped out of his seat. "She's not asking you to enjoy it," he shouted, "just do it will you?" "Alright," said Marvin like the tolling of a great cracked bell, "I'll do it." "Good ..." snapped Zaphod, "great ... thank you ..." Marvin turned and lifted his flat-topped triangular red eyes up towards him. "I'm not getting you down
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Things Fall Apart.txt
| 90 |
very good on his flute, and his happiest moments were the two or three moons after the harvest when the village musicians brought down their instruments, hung above the fireplace. Unoka would play with them, his face beaming with blessedness and peace. Sometimes another village would ask Unoka's band and their dancing egwugwu to come and stay with them and teach them their tunes. They would go to such hosts for as long as three or four markets, making music and feasting. Unoka loved the good hire and the good fellowship, and he loved this season of the year, when the rains had stopped and the sun rose every morning with dazzling beauty. And it was not too hot either, because the cold and dry harmattan wind was blowing down from the north. Some years the harmattan was very severe and a dense haze hung on the atmosphere. Old men and children would then sit round log fires, warming their bodies. Unoka loved it all, and he loved the first kites that returned with the dry season, and the children who sang songs of welcome to them. He would remember his own childhood, how he had often wandered around looking for a kite sailing leisurely against the blue sky. As soon as he found one he would sing with his whole being, welcoming it back from its long, long journey, and asking it if it had brought home any lengths of cloth. That was years ago, when he was young. Unoka, the grown-up, was a failure. He was poor and his wife and children had barely enough to eat. People laughed at him because he was a loafer, and they swore never to lend him any more money because he never paid back. But Unoka was such a man that he always succeeded in borrowing more, and piling up his debts. One day a neighbour called Okoye came in to see him. He was reclining on a mud bed in his hut playing on the flute. He immediately rose and shook hands with Okoye, who then unrolled the goatskin which he carried under his arm, and sat down. Unoka went into an inner room and soon returned with a small wooden disc containing a kola nut, some alligator pepper and a lump of white chalk. "I have kola," he announced when he sat down, and passed the disc over to his guest. "Thank you. He who brings kola brings life. But I think you ought to break it," replied Okoye, passing back the disc. "No, it is for you, I think," and they argued like this for a few moments before Unoka accepted the honour of breaking the kola. Okoye, meanwhile, took the lump of chalk, drew some lines on the floor, and then painted his big toe. As he broke the kola, Unoka prayed to their ancestors for life and health, and for protection against their enemies. When they had eaten they talked about many things: about the heavy rains which were drowning the yams, about the next ancestral feast and
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Bartleby the Scrivener A Story of Wall Street.txt
| 90 |
into his hermitage. It was rather weak in me I confess, but his manner on this occasion nettled me. Not only did there seem to lurk in it a certain calm disdain, but his perverseness seemed ungrateful, considering the undeniable good usage and indulgence he had received from me. Again I sat ruminating what I should do. Mortified as I was at his behavior, and resolved as I had been to dismiss him when I entered my offices, nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this forlornest of mankind. At last, familiarly drawing my chair behind his screen, I sat down and said: “Bartleby, never mind then about revealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as may be with the usages of this office. Say now you will help to examine papers to-morrow or next day: in short, say now that in a day or two you will begin to be a little reasonable:—say so, Bartleby.” “At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,” was his mildly cadaverous reply. Just then the folding-doors opened, and Nippers approached. He seemed suffering from an unusually bad night’s rest, induced by severer indigestion then common. He overheard those final words of Bartleby. “Prefer not, eh?” gritted Nippers—”I’d prefer him, if I were you, sir,” addressing me—”I’d prefer him; I’d give him preferences, the stubborn mule! What is it, sir, pray, that he prefers not to do now?” Bartleby moved not a limb. “Mr. Nippers,” said I, “I’d prefer that you would withdraw for the present.” Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word “prefer” upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way. And what further and deeper aberration might it not yet produce? This apprehension had not been without efficacy in determining me to summary means. As Nippers, looking very sour and sulky, was departing, Turkey blandly and deferentially approached. “With submission, sir,” said he, “yesterday I was thinking about Bartleby here, and I think that if he would but prefer to take a quart of good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him, and enabling him to assist in examining his papers.” “So you have got the word too,” said I, slightly excited. “With submission, what word, sir,” asked Turkey, respectfully crowding himself into the contracted space behind the screen, and by so doing, making me jostle the scrivener. “What word, sir?” “I would prefer to be left alone here,” said Bartleby, as if offended at being mobbed in his privacy. “That’s the word, Turkey,” said I—”that’s it.” “Oh, prefer? oh yes—queer word. I never use it myself. But, sir, as I was saying, if he would but prefer—” “Turkey,” interrupted I, “you will please withdraw.” “Oh
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Silvia-Moreno-Garcia-Silver-Nitr.txt
| 84 |
surprise that mirrors are reputed to have occult uses, seeing as they are coated with silver. Silver nitrate film, therefore, naturally offers an acolyte a perfect medium for sealing spells. Magic rites, shot with silver nitrate film, and shown to an audience, will multiply their potency tenfold. A spell caster must be seen and heard to have a powerful effect. Magic in the dark, in the privacy of a room, does not suffice. Witchcraft cannot be hidden between walls. She slid Ewers’s photograph out of the album and held it up. “Of course you wanted to be seen and heard,” she said. “I think you wanted to be an actor.” She realized how ridiculous she sounded, speaking to a picture of a dead man, especially when this was nothing but an idle conjecture, but the practiced tilt of Ewers’s head indicated many hours spent in front of a mirror. “How’d you do it?” she asked his photo. “How do you make magic real and not just words on paper?” She set the photo down and retrieved Ewers’s letter. The apartment was quiet, but it was not the quiet of the other night. It was merely the usual silence laced with the humming of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the barking of a dog on the floor below. Blocks away, a siren wailed. She took more sips of tea. The warmth of the beverage and the lovely, comforting sight of all her possessions had a soothing effect, and she found herself yawning. She scribbled on a napkin—Ewers, Wilhelm, magic, spell—then crumpled the napkin, smudging the words. The phone rang, and she picked it up. “I told you to call me when you got home,” Tristán said. “I got here five minutes ago.” “You left my apartment over an hour ago.” “I lost track of time,” she said, glancing at the clock on the wall and setting the cup on the coffee table. She rubbed the back of her neck with her free hand. “What are you doing?” “Looking for information,” she said, flipping the pages of the book on her lap and turning to the chapter titled “The Cipher of Fire.” It was conveniently illustrated with the image of a flame within a circle. “Did you find anything interesting?” “Nothing yet. I need to give his book another look, with more care. I skipped through a lot of bits the first time I looked at it. I should give his letter a lengthy reread, too. And the film in the vault…I need to retrieve that.” “Don’t tell me you plan to put it in your freezer?” “No. I want to see that scene we dubbed again. I have a copy of the pages we used for the dubbing. I should check that,” she said, sliding the book aside so she could take another sip of tea. “Why?” “ ‘Give me your hands, dearest brother and sister, for now we call upon the Lords of Air, the Princes in Yellow, to witness our rites,’ ” she recited carefully, setting the cup down. “I’m
| 0 |
92 |
The-Scorched-Throne-1-Sara-Hashe.txt
| 34 |
He disappeared, several arms reached for me, and I gratefully relinquished my hold on consciousness. ARIN It was her. The name Sylvia had uttered was different from the name that had been given to Arin ten years ago, but he knew. She had tricked him once. It would not happen again. The horse beneath Arin leapt. They sailed over a water trough, scattering a penned herd of sheep. She was weaving, trying to dissipate the traces of her magic. But he could feel it gliding over his skin like the thinnest blade. She would not escape him this time. Arin leaned forward, spurring his horse to dangerous speeds. She would find somewhere noisy to hide. There were plenty of options to choose from. The upper towns of Lukub were celebrating the Alcalah alongside the Ivory Palace. Crowds in red and white were strewn in the streets. Performers twirled on raised platforms, bare feet moving lithely to the beat of the tubluh. Everywhere, chaos. A horse appeared next to his. “Your Highness, I came to help,” Wes said. He was out of breath. “Why are you here?” Alarm locked the muscles in Arin’s body. “Is she—” “No, no. The Champion is alive. Jeru and Ren are with her and the medics. I cannot be of service to anyone there, so I left.” Arin stared at Wes. He could feel the trail of Soraya’s magic fading. If he had any hope of catching her, he needed to move. To cut her off at the alleyway behind the festival and win the game she had started when he was sixteen. If he went after Soraya, Sylvia would die. It was a fact. Her wound was deep. She had likely broken several bones in her fall. Arin needed Sylvia to capture the Mufsids and Urabi. Apprehending Soraya would satisfy his ego, but not his mission. A reasonable voice reminded Arin he could simply torture the necessary information out of Soraya. She had been with the Mufsids for many years; with pain’s incentivizing persuasion, Arin could wring their location out of her. The Urabi’s, too, he suspected. All he had to do was spur his horse forward. “Why shouldn’t I behave as a killer if I’m to suffer the same fate regardless?” Fire danced in her hair. Vaun groaned. Her dark eyes, which should have been lit with the silver and gold of Jasadi magic, brimmed with pain. Pain so severe, Arin suspected she had stopped seeing it for what it was. She would have recast it as anger, as an inborn quality of her character. Incomprehensibly volatile, he had thought. Lack of emotional mastery. She probably thought the same. She was bleeding, right there in front of him, and the fatal wound wasn’t the one either of them could see. “If Sylvia survives, she will return,” he told Wes. His loyal guard’s eyes widened. “Sire, you cannot mean to let her go. You have chased her since—” Arin turned his horse toward the Ivory Palace and snapped the reins. CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR I sank through clouds of
| 0 |
29 |
Tarzan of the Apes.txt
| 32 |
him rose a new respect for Frenchmen which remained undimmed ever after. It was quite late when they reached the cabin by the beach. A single shot before they emerged from the jungle had announced to those in camp as well as on the ship that the expedition had been too late--for it had been prearranged that when they came within a mile or two of camp one shot was to be fired to denote failure, or three for success, while two would have indicated that they had found no sign of either D'Arnot or his black captors. So it was a solemn party that awaited their coming, and few words were spoken as the dead and wounded men were tenderly placed in boats and rowed silently toward the cruiser. Clayton, exhausted from his five days of laborious marching through the jungle and from the effects of his two battles with the blacks, turned toward the cabin to seek a mouthful of food and then the comparative ease of his bed of grasses after two nights in the jungle. By the cabin door stood Jane. "The poor lieutenant?" she asked. "Did you find no trace of him?" "We were too late, Miss Porter," he replied sadly. "Tell me. What had happened?" she asked. "I cannot, Miss Porter, it is too horrible." "You do not mean that they had tortured him?" she whispered. "We do not know what they did to him BEFORE they killed him," he answered, his face drawn with fatigue Chapter 22 125 and the sorrow he felt for poor D'Arnot and he emphasized the word before. "BEFORE they killed him! What do you mean? They are not--? They are not--?" She was thinking of what Clayton had said of the forest man's probable relationship to this tribe and she could not frame the awful word. "Yes, Miss Porter, they were--cannibals," he said, almost bitterly, for to him too had suddenly come the thought of the forest man, and the strange, unaccountable jealousy he had felt two days before swept over him once more. And then in sudden brutality that was as unlike Clayton as courteous consideration is unlike an ape, he blurted out: "When your forest god left you he was doubtless hurrying to the feast." He was sorry ere the words were spoken though he did not know how cruelly they had cut the girl. His regret was for his baseless disloyalty to one who had saved the lives of every member of his party, and offered harm to none. The girl's head went high. "There could be but one suitable reply to your assertion, Mr. Clayton," she said icily, "and I regret that I am not a man, that I might make it." She turned quickly and entered the cabin. Clayton was an Englishman, so the girl had passed quite out of sight before he deduced what reply a man would have made. "Upon my word," he said ruefully, "she called me a liar. And I fancy I jolly well deserved it," he added thoughtfully. "Clayton, my
| 1 |
99 |
spare.txt
| 43 |
Prince<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Albert, forced to remain ramrod straight before china plates and crystal<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">goblets placed with mathematical precision by staff (who used tape<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">measures), forced to peck at quails’ eggs and turbot, forced to make idle<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">chitchat while stuffed into their fanciest kit. Black tie, hard black shoes,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">trews. Maybe even kilts.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">I thought: What hell, being an adult!<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Pa stopped by on his way to dinner. He was running late, but he made a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">show of lifting a silver dome—Yum, wish I was having that!—and taking a<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">long sniff. He was always sniffing things. Food, roses, our hair. He must’ve<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">been a bloodhound in another life. Maybe he took all those long sniffs<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">because it was hard to smell anything over his personal scent. Eau Sauvage.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">He’d slather the stuff on his cheeks, his neck, his shirt. Flowery, with a hint<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">of something harsh, like pepper or gunpowder, it was made in Paris. Said so<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">on the bottle. Which made me think of Mummy.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Yes, Harry, Mummy’ in Paris.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Their divorce had become final exactly one year before. Almost to the<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">day.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Be good, boys.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">We will, Pa.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Dont stay up too late.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">He left. His scent remained.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">20<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">https://m.facebook.com/groups/182281287 1297698 https://t.:me/Afghansalarlibrary<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Willy and I finished dinner, watched some more TV, then got up to our<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">typical pre-bedtime hiinks. We perched on the top step of a side staircase<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">and eavesdropped on the adults, hoping to hear a naughty word or story. We<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">ran up and down the long corridors, under the watchful eyes of dozens of<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">dead stag heads. At some point we bumped into Granny’s piper. Rumpled,<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">pear-shaped, with wild eyebrows and a tweed kilt, he went wherever Granny<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">went, because she loved the sound of pipes, as had Victoria, though Albert<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">supposedly called them a “beastly instrument.” While summering at<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">Balmoral, Granny asked that the piper play her awake and play her to dinner.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1"></span><br></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">His instrument looked like a drunken octopus, except that its floppy arms<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></p> <p class="p2"><span class="s1">were etched
| 0 |
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The-Last-Sinner.txt
| 21 |
checked the guy out, found out he was legit, and decided he had no choice but to return the call. Strange picked up on the third ring. “Detective Wyatt Strange.” “Detective Reuben Montoya, New Orleans Police Department. I’m returning your call.” “Oh, yeah . . . Montoya.” The guy had a west Texas accent that didn’t sound anything like Oregon. “Hey, we’re lookin’ for Cruz Montoya, and found out he was related to you.” “That’s right. Why are you looking for Cruz?” “I’d like to ask him a few questions. We’ve got a homicide up here, body found near the Trask River way up in the mountains. Rugged country. Lucia Costa. We think Cruz might be able to help us find out what happened to her.” “He’s a suspect?” May as well cut to the chase. “No suspects, at least not yet. Just a person of interest. Could be Cruz was the last one to see her alive. He might know something that would help us in the investigation. You know where he is? How I might reach him?” Montoya couldn’t lie to the guy, but he wasn’t about to give his brother up. Luckily, he didn’t know where Cruz had landed. He glanced at his great-grandfather’s belt, coiled like a snake and mocking him as he walked a thin line between the truth and lies. “I got a call from him a couple of days ago. Said he was in the Mojave outside Las Vegas, that he was in some kind of trouble—didn’t say what it was—and that he was heading east, probably here, to New Orleans. Nothing more.” “Has he called since?” “No.” “Did you call him back?” “Yeah. No answer. Kept trying. Now the phone number is out of service.” “Can you give me that number?” “Sure.” Montoya didn’t hesitate. He was dealing with the law, for one thing. For another? He was certain Cruz had gotten rid of what was no doubt a burner phone. “Let’s see. Here ya go.” He rattled off the digits and wished to high heaven Cruz would contact him again. “Got it. If you hear from your brother, have him get in contact with me,” Strange said. “ASAP. As I said, this is a homicide case.” “Will do.” “Thanks.” Wyatt Strange ended the connection, which Montoya found odd. He thought the Oregon detective would have a lot more questions for him about Lucia Costa. Montoya had known her most of his life. Her family and his—they’d all grown up together. Then again, Strange probably had all that info. What he wanted was Cruz. “Join the club,” Montoya muttered under his breath. “Join the fuckin’ club.” CHAPTER 24 “We’ll go later,” Kristi promised the dog as she started for the garage. She was already late if she wanted to get to the Newcomers’ Worship Event at the New Faith and Glory Church of Praise near Kenner. Dave followed her to the door and she gave him a pat. “Sorry, bud. Hang in. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” She double-checked the alarm
| 0 |
40 |
The Picture of Dorian Gray.txt
| 49 |
of large balasses." The favorites of James I. wore ear-rings of emeralds set in gold filigrane. Edward II. gave to Piers Gaveston a suit of red-gold armor studded with jacinths, and a collar of gold roses set with turquoise-stones, and a skull-cap parsem with pearls. Henry II. wore jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove set with twelve rubies and fifty-two great pearls. The ducal hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race, was studded with sapphires and hung with pear- shaped pearls. How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and decoration! Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful. Then he turned his attention to embroideries, and to the tapestries that performed the office of frescos in the chill rooms of the Northern nations of Europe. As he investigated the subject,--and he always had an extraordinary faculty of becoming absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up,--he was almost saddened by the reflection of the ruin that time brought on beautiful and wonderful things. He, at any rate, had escaped that. Summer followed summer, and the yellow jonquils bloomed and died many times, and nights of horror repeated the story of their shame, but he was unchanged. No winter marred his face or stained his flower-like bloom. How different it was with material things! Where had they gone to? Where was the great crocus-colored robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been worked for Athena? Where the huge velarium that Nero had stretched across the Colosseum at Rome, on which were represented the starry sky, and Apollo driving a chariot drawn by [72] white gilt-reined steeds? He longed to see the curious table-napkins wrought for Elagabalus, on which were displayed all the dainties and viands that could be wanted for a feast; the mortuary cloth of King Chilperic, with its three hundred golden bees; the fantastic robes that excited the indignation of the Bishop of Pontus, and were figured with "lions, panthers, bears, dogs, forests, rocks, hunters,--all, in fact, that a painter can copy from nature;" and the coat that Charles of Orleans once wore, on the sleeves of which were embroidered the verses of a song beginning "Madame, je suis tout joyeux," the musical accompaniment of the words being wrought in gold thread, and each note, a square shape in those days, formed with four pearls. He read of the room that was prepared at the palace at Rheims for the use of Queen Joan of Burgundy, and was decorated with "thirteen hundred and twenty-one parrots, made in broidery, and blazoned with the king's arms, and five hundred and sixty-one butterflies, whose wings were similarly ornamented with the arms of the queen, the whole worked in gold." Catherine de Mdicis had a mourning-bed made for her of black velvet powdered with crescents and suns. Its curtains were of damask, with leafy wreaths and garlands, figured upon a gold and silver ground, and fringed along the edges with broideries of
| 1 |
87 |
The Foxglove King.txt
| 93 |
feel for the crowd when there were so many of them, but most were focused enough on the match that it should be easy to spot someone slipping off for a whispered conversation. Gabe slumped a few feet away from her and Bastian, facing the fight, but with his one blue eye scanning back and forth through his mask. The boxer with the bruised lip feinted to the side. The blond one stumbled, a punch overthrown. “There,” Bastian said. He didn’t point, but angled his chin toward the shadows on the far edge of the ring, a place between streetlights where the dark was deepest. Three figures huddled, angled away from the match. The one whose face Lore could see looked like he was listening intently to whatever was being said. The figure speaking had their back turned. Bastian and Gabe exchanged a look. Gabe nodded, then started moving toward the group, pushing through the crowd like a shark through a school of fish. “Come on.” Bastian took Lore’s arm and tugged her after him. “I don’t think our pet monk will need any backup, but we should stick close, just in case.” A roar went up from the ring. When Lore looked back, the blond boxer was on the ground. The group in the shadows broke apart before Gabe could reach them, the figure who’d been speaking fading into the crowd without Lore getting a good look at them. Gabe approached one of the men who’d been listening, struck up a casual conversation. Bastian and Lore stopped a few feet away; from what she could hear, it sounded like Gabe was talking about sailing weather. “Bleeding God,” she muttered, and Bastian snorted. A few more inane words about northwesterly winds, and Gabe nodded in the direction of the now-disappeared speaker. “You all wouldn’t know about any job opportunities opening up around here, would you? I’m looking to make some extra coin.” A pause. “Something that could be done in one night would be ideal.” “Laying it on a bit thick,” Bastian whispered. Lore dug her elbow into his ribs. The man Gabe spoke to—very small and slight, if it weren’t for the thick stubble on his jaw, Lore would think his voice still hadn’t cracked—glanced at his companion, then rubbed at his neck. A constellation of bruises bloomed there, deep purple and new. “I might,” he said slowly. “But the details aren’t mine to share.” Gabe’s jaw tightened, and the slight man stepped back, eyes widening in brief alarm. Lore didn’t blame him. Gabe didn’t look like the kind of person you’d want to anger. “How could one find someone willing to impart details?” Gabe asked. The man’s companion—larger than he, but still young looking—let out a harsh laugh. “Lose,” he said, cutting a hand toward the ring. Lore looked back. The blond fighter was up again, but blood trickled steadily from a cut across her forehead, dripping into her eyes. “Lose?” Gabe’s confusion drew his brows together, wrinkled the black domino mask. “Lose a fight,” the slight man mumbled, rubbing
| 0 |
84 |
Silvia-Moreno-Garcia-Silver-Nitr.txt
| 44 |
our age, then you must be careful,” she said, her voice strained, thinking of how they both had a lousy record when it came to human hearts. “We’re not children to be playing house.” He huffed, bruised by her refusal. He hadn’t expected her to swoon, but this felt like a military siege; he’d have to fight tooth and nail for her. But it only emboldened him, made him realize he’d have to dig deep, and he wouldn’t be able to do things in halves. “Call me immature then, because it sounds reasonable to me,” he said, spreading his arms. “It’s twenty years of foreplay, Momo. Do you want to wait a few more decades until I can’t masticate my own food? ’Cause I’ll love you until then and feed you pureed prunes, but it would be a shame to start living together at eighty-nine and die of a heart attack the first time we have sex.” “That is the most disgusting declaration I’ve ever heard,” she said flatly, and then she couldn’t help it, she laughed. Tristán laughed, too, and now he felt stupid, but he supposed that was fine. It was okay to be stupid when it came to Montserrat. “It is, isn’t it?” he said. They hugged. She clung tightly to him, tighter than she’d ever held him. His arms wrapped around her, chasing shadows away. “What do you want me to say? I recite dialogue, I can’t write it,” he whispered, his voice soft against her ear. “You’re a silly tomato,” she blurted, not even knowing what she said. She was forgetting the meaning of words and how to speak them. “A silly tomato!” She could feel his smile, but her face was buried against his chest, and he was running a hand through her hair. She couldn’t bear to look at him. “You can’t drive my car, I won’t let you. I won’t do your laundry, I won’t sew your buttons, and if you don’t pick up after yourself, I’ll toss you out,” she said, whip-quick. “I’ll cook. Believe me, we’ll live longer,” he said, his fingers sliding down her cheek, tipping up her chin. “You’re an asshole,” she said. “You going to kiss me or what?” he asked, voice husky, and was rewarded with the tremor of her lashes. “At least I’m not the only nervous one,” he said, savoring the startled look on her face as she stared up at him. She wanted to punch him. “You probably kiss like in the movies and I’ll die of embarrassment.” “Well, fuck me, I kiss well, yes. That’s a plus. Now who’s the silly tomato?” he asked, stepping back and arching an eyebrow at her. “Wanna make out in your car tonight?” She did punch him on the arm then, not hard, but to make sure he didn’t get too cocky. Across the avenue, a vendor of tamales was pushing a cart, his strident whistle calling forth customers. A boy carrying a big boom box was walking on the other side of the street, spewing loud notes
| 0 |
90 |
The-Lost-Bookshop.txt
| 34 |
are. You are such a capable young woman. I’m so very proud of you. I wanted to come here and tell you that, even if it’s a little late in the day.’ ‘It’s never too late,’ came Madame Bowden’s voice from behind me. She had a knack for just appearing in the middle of other people’s conversations. ‘Won’t you come inside?’ It felt like a novelty having tea with my mother in the back kitchen of this grand old house. Madame Bowden suggested it as it was roomier than my flat and left us to it, thankfully. I thought she would poke her nose in, but she did have some sense of tact when it suited her. I talked cheerfully about my course in Trinity, the friends I’d made, my new-found interest in literature. ‘You’ve made a lovely life for yourself here,’ she said, placing her hand on mine. ‘I’m happy, Mom. Even living here with Madame Bowden – it’s not what I would have envisioned for myself as a young woman, but it kind of works. I think we’re good for each other.’ ‘She sounds like a guardian angel.’ I wasn’t sure if that’s how I’d describe her. I poured some more tea from the pot. All my years at home, my father and my brothers took up all of the oxygen, but here, it was like we could finally breathe deeply. It’s only in something’s absence that you realise how much space it takes up. ‘There’s something I want to tell you, Martha.’ ‘You’re leaving Dad?’ She gave me a double take. ‘I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought about it, but no. Your father is … well, he’s not perfect. But he’s dependable, and even though sometimes I wish I could change so many things about him, he has given me a home where I feel safe.’ I had never heard her speak about my father that way. Despite the fact that I still had a different opinion, I understood and respected hers. ‘What is it then?’ ‘It’s not something serious … what I mean is, it won’t change anything, for you at least. But it might help you to understand the past. My past.’ She turned the teacup on the saucer, slowly choosing her words. It was strange for both of us to hear her voice like this, when we’d always communicated in silence. ‘After Shane, I began to realise that the past isn’t something we leave behind. It is living with us, every day. It isn’t simply DNA that we inherit. I think there are other things passed down through the generations. Memories, perhaps.’ She was speaking from a place of deep pain, I could see that. I moved my chair closer to hers. The atmosphere in the kitchen took on an air of intense stillness, as though it too was waiting for her story. ‘My mother was adopted as a baby.’ Of all of the things she could have said, I never would have anticipated that. Our family history was something I had seen
| 0 |
15 |
Frankenstein.txt
| 70 |
a traveller's life is one that includes much pain amidst its enjoyments. His feelings are forever on the stretch; and when he begins to sink into repose, he finds himself obliged to quit that on which he rests in pleasure for something new, which again engages his attention, and which also he forsakes for other novelties. We had scarcely visited the various lakes of Cumberland and Westmorland and conceived an affection for some of the inhabitants when the period of our appointment with our Scotch friend approached, and we left them to travel on. For my own part I was not sorry. I had now neglected my promise for some time, and I feared the effects of the daemon's disappointment. He might remain in Switzerland and wreak his vengeance on my relatives. This idea pursued me and tormented me at every moment from which I might otherwise have snatched repose and peace. I waited for my letters with feverish impatience; if they were delayed I was miserable and overcome by a thousand fears; and when they arrived and I saw the superscription of Elizabeth or my father, I hardly dared to read and ascertain my fate. Sometimes I thought that the fiend followed me and might expedite my remissness by murdering my companion. When these thoughts possessed me, I would not quit Henry for a moment, but followed him as his shadow, to protect him from the fancied rage of his destroyer. I felt as if I had committed some great crime, the consciousness of which haunted me. I was guiltless, but I had indeed drawn down a horrible curse upon my head, as mortal as that of crime. I visited Edinburgh with languid eyes and mind; and yet that city might have interested the most unfortunate being. Clerval did not like it so well as Oxford, for the antiquity of the latter city was more pleasing to him. But the beauty and regularity of the new town of Edinburgh, its romantic castle and its environs, the most delightful in the world, Arthur's Seat, St. Bernard's Well, and the Pentland Hills compensated him for the change and filled him with cheerfulness and admiration. But I was impatient to arrive at the termination of my journey. We left Edinburgh in a week, passing through Coupar, St. Andrew's, and along the banks of the Tay, to Perth, where our friend expected us. But I was in no mood to laugh and talk with strangers or enter into their feelings or plans with the good humour expected from a guest; and accordingly I told Clerval that I wished to make the tour of Scotland alone. "Do you," said I, "enjoy yourself, and let this be our rendezvous. I may be absent a month or two; but do not interfere with my motions, I entreat you; leave me to peace and solitude for a short time; and when I return, I hope it will be with a lighter heart, more congenial to your own temper. Henry wished to dissuade me, but seeing me bent on this
| 1 |
13 |
Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey.txt
| 40 |
He stops. I shift in his lap, and he winces. Oh. I flush. “Sorry,” I mutter. He rolls his eyes, then leans back suddenly, taking me with him, so that we’re both lying on the bed, me in his arms. My bra is uncomfortable, and I adjust it. “Need a hand?” he asks quietly. I shake my head. I don’t want him to touch my breasts. He shifts so he’s looking down at me, and tentatively raising his hand, he strokes his fingers gently down my face. Tears pool in my eyes again. How can he be so callous one minute and so tender the next? “Please don’t cry,” he whispers. I’m dazed and confused by this man. My anger has deserted me in my hour of need . . . I feel numb. I want to curl up in a ball and withdraw. I blink, trying to hold back my tears as I gaze into his harrowed eyes. I take a shuddering breath, my eyes not leaving his. What am I going to do with this controlling man? Learn to be controlled? I don’t think so . . . “I never what?” I ask “Do as you’re told. You changed your mind; you didn’t tell me where you were. Ana, I was in New York, powerless and livid. If I’d been in Seattle I’d have brought you home.” “So you are punishing me?” He swallows, then closes his eyes. He doesn’t have to answer, and I know that punishing me was his exact intention. “You have to stop doing this,” I murmur. His brow furrows. “For a start, you only end up feeling shittier about yourself.” He snorts. “That’s true,” he mutters. “I don’t like to see you like this.” “And I don’t like feeling like this. You said on the Fair Lady that you hadn’t married a submissive.” “I know. I know.” His voice is soft and raw. 242/551 “Well stop treating me like one. I’m sorry I didn’t call you. I won’t be so selfish again. I know you worry about me.” He gazes at me, scrutinizing me closely, his eyes bleak and anxious. “Okay. Good,” he says eventually. He leans down, but pauses before his lips touch mine, silently asking if it’s allowed. I raise my face to his, and he kisses me tenderly. “Your lips are always so soft when you’ve been crying,” he murmurs. “I never promised to obey you, Christian,” I whisper. “I know.” “Deal with it, please. For both our sakes. And I will try and be more consid- erate of your . . . controlling tendencies.” He looks lost and vulnerable, completely at sea. “I’ll try,” he murmurs, his voice burning with sincerity. I sigh, a long shuddering sigh. “Please do. Besides, if I had been here . . .” “I know,” he says and blanches. Lying back, he puts his free arm over his face. I curl around him and lay my head on his chest. We both lie silent for a few moments. His hand moves to the end of my
| 1 |
55 |
Blowback.txt
| 82 |
to exit. I felt awash in shame, like the specter of suicidal ideation was some selfish luxury I’d been contemplating. An easy way out. We talked about it for hours. We talked about everything—social media harassment, breakups, anxiety and depression, the country, and what types of bad takeout I should order to fashion a grungier safe-house aesthetic. Hannah took the role of accidental counselor seriously. But she also kept it light. When I confessed that I felt like I was drinking too much and might have an addiction problem, she didn’t miss a beat. “Miles, you know there’s a really good Alcoholics Anonymous joke somewhere in there.” I laughed. “That’s a big deal for me to say that out loud,” I told her. “So I’m gonna need some kind of confession from you in exchange.” “I’ve kept something to myself for a long time,” she replied, looking into my eyes with the utmost somberness. “I have always, always wanted to be a redhead.” Hannah met Dennis and told him to get me out of the house more. One of the days, she proposed a short hike on Teddy Roosevelt Island to get fresh air, knowing I was anxious about the continued ambiguity surrounding the election. (Arizona had been called for Biden; now all eyes were on Pennsylvania.) The three of us trudged through the muddy paths realizing we’d all worn the wrong shoes. I was partway out of my funk by the time she came over on Saturday morning. Hannah smoked up the kitchen with pancakes and hash browns and bacon, while I did things I’d been putting off. I looked up how to file for unemployment, and I searched for my own apartment. Frankly, I didn’t want to be holed up in a place that wasn’t mine, and Hannah insisted a scenery change was needed. While I was scrolling through listings trying to find something affordable, she let out a gasp. “Oh my god!” Hannah was looking at her phone in shock. “What?” I looked up. She covered her mouth, and I worried someone had been shot. “It’s over,” she said, reading to me from her phone. “Pennsylvania. ‘NBC says… Biden is the projected winner.’ We did it, Miles. You guys did it! It’s over!” Hearing those words got me. I hadn’t cried in years, but for the second time in days, tears ran down my cheeks as Hannah walked over and hugged me at the dining room table. I covered my face as she sneaked a picture of me. You could hear the news alert spreading outside. Within minutes, people cheered on the sidewalks below and drivers honked, again and again. An overwhelming sense of relief filled the sunny apartment. “We have to go celebrate. Tell Dennis we’re going down to the National Mall,” she declared. I called him. “No, no, no, no,” Dennis said. “Sir, there could be dangerous people who show up and want to ruin the party.” “Dennis, we’re doing it,” I told him, “whether you come with us or not.” On the ride over a few
| 0 |
52 |
A-Living-Remedy.txt
| 32 |
may never know all the reasons why he didn’t feel more open to receiving a donated kidney, whether from a family member or from a stranger. Though I’ve often wished that we could have come up with an argument that would have changed his mind, my mother believed nothing either of us could say would have swayed him. She said that he remembered his mother’s agony after organ rejection, and in the end he believed that neither dialysis nor a transplant would give him a long life. The dialysis did its job, as it had for his mother, first saving and then extending his life. But the ongoing treatments left him drained and far more vulnerable to other illnesses and infections. His immune system was compromised; he was constantly getting sick. We knew that he wasn’t thriving, nor was he improving. He was enduring. * * * He had been on dialysis for four and a half years when he began experiencing balance problems, head and neck pain, difficulty walking. After two painful falls and a high fever, he finally made an appointment with his doctor. An MRI showed an aggressive case of osteomyelitis, a bone infection, in his vertebrae, which was putting pressure on his neck and attacking his spinal cord. The doctor wasn’t certain where it had come from; while the area around his dialysis port was vulnerable to infection, it appeared to be clear. His best guess was that the bacterial attack might have started in the teeth and gums, where my father was prone to abscesses and infections. Both diabetes and dialysis increased his risk of dental problems, and he had rarely had access to comprehensive dental coverage. My father was referred to a neurosurgeon, who performed surgery within hours. “If you wait even one more day, you’re risking paralysis or spinal stroke,” he told my parents. He removed a badly inflamed spinal disk and several damaged vertebrae, putting in plates and screws where necessary. The operation was successful, but when Dad woke up in the recovery area, he kept clearing his throat, insisting he “could feel something down there.” Soon his trachea was so swollen from the infection and the trauma of the operation that he needed to be intubated and moved to the ICU. All of this happened so quickly that my mother had no time to update me. By the time she could call, the swelling had gone down, and Dad was off the ventilator and breathing on his own again. She agreed that we should try to come out and visit soon, but advised us to wait until he came home from the hospital. “There’d be nothing for you to do right now,” she said, sounding impossibly weary. When I was able to talk to Dad, I spent most of the call in tears, apologizing for not being closer. It was still hard for him to speak. He tried to tell me that it was all right, he was getting the care he needed, and he knew that I was praying for him and
| 0 |
98 |
Yellowface.txt
| 98 |
week that I started suffering flashbacks. Andrew’s face would pop up in my mind during lectures: vivid, up close, his chin prickly and his breath sour with cinnamon Burnett’s. I’d find myself unable to breathe, unable to move without feeling waves of vertigo. My imagination would spiral out, imagining the worst possible scenarios. Could I be pregnant? Did I have HIV? HPV? Herpes? AIDS? Would my uterus rot out inside me? Should I see campus health? If I saw campus health, would it cost me hundreds of dollars I didn’t have? Had my mom waived the student insurance plan? I couldn’t remember. Was I going to die because of a stupid mistake I’d made, something I hadn’t even been awake for? Andrew didn’t text me until two in the morning the following Saturday: Hey, u up? I saw it when I got up to pee and deleted it, hoping to spare my waking self the reminder of his existence. But I couldn’t get his face, his smell, his touch out of my mind. I started taking incredibly long showers, three or four times a day. I kept having nightmares in which I was pinned beneath him, trapped under his scratchy chin, unable to move or scream. Michelle would wake me up, shaking my shoulders gently, asking me apologetically and diplomatically if I had earplugs she could borrow, because she had discussion section at eight in the morning and I was interrupting her REM cycles. I found myself weeping randomly in the afternoons, overwhelmed with self-loathing. I even considered going to a student Bible study group, though I’d stopped going to church after Dad since the pastor told me he was going to hell as he’d never been baptized, just because I wanted something that could help me make sense of my very retrograde but still strong conviction that I was irreversibly tainted, used, and dirty. “Hey, Juniper?” Athena stopped me one afternoon on my way back from the dining hall. Back then, Athena was the only one who used my full name, which was a habit she would sustain through adulthood, calling Tashas “Natasha” and Bills “William” as if this insistence on formality would elevate everyone in the conversation. (It did.) She touched my arm. Her fingers were smooth and cool. “Are you okay?” And maybe it was because I’d been holding it all in for so long, or because she was the first person at Yale who’d really looked at me and noticed that something wasn’t right, but I burst immediately into loud, ugly tears. “Come on,” she said, rubbing gentle circles on my back. “Let’s go to my room.” Athena held my hand while I recounted the whole thing through hiccupping sobs. She talked me through my options, made me look through the campus resources list, and helped me decide if I wanted to seek counseling (yes) or report Andrew to the campus police to try and press charges (no). She walked with me to my first appointment with Dr. Gaily, where I got a diagnosis for my anxiety, unpacked
| 0 |
23 |
Moby Dick; Or, The Whale.txt
| 91 |
water of the wake, and further on, hunted by its wolfish gurglings. The long howl thrills me through! Peace! ye revellers, and set the watch! Oh, life! 'tis in an hour like this, with soul beat down and held to knowledge, --as wild, untutored things are forced to feed --Oh, life! 'tis now that I do feel the latent horror in thee! but 'tis not me! that horror's out of me! and with the soft feeling of the human in me, yet will I try to fight ye, ye grim, phantom futures! Stand by me, hold me, bind me, O ye blessed influences! .. <p 168 > .. < chapter xxxix 2 FIRST NIGHT-WATCH FORE-TOP > ( Stubb solus, and mending a brace.) Ha! ha! ha! ha! hem! clear my throat! --I've been thinking over it ever since, and that ha, ha's the final consequence. Why so? Because a laugh's the wisest, easiest answer to all that's queer; and come what will, one comfort's always left -- that unfailing comfort is, it's all predestinated. I heard not all his talk with Starbuck; but to my poor eye Starbuck then looked something as I the other evening felt. Be sure the old Mogul has fixed him, too. I twigged it, knew it; had had the gift, might readily have prophesied it --for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it. Well, Stubb, wise Stubb --that's my title --well, Stubb, what of it, Stubb? Here's a carcase. I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing. Such a waggish leering as lurks in all your horribles! I feel funny. Fa, la! lirra, skirra! What's my juicy little pear at home doing now? Crying its eyes out? --Giving a party to the last arrived harpooneers, I dare say, gay as a frigate's pennant, and so am I--fa, la! lirra, skirra! Oh-- We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting. a brave stave that --who calls? mr. starbuck? Aye, aye, sir -- ( Aside) he's my superior, he has his too, if I'm not mistaken. -- Aye, aye, sir, just through with this job --coming. .. <p 169 > .. < chapter xl 2 MIDNIGHT, FORECASTLE HARPOONERS AND SAILORS > ( Foresail rises and discovers the watch standing, lounging, leaning, and lying in various attitudes, all singing in chorus.) Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies! Farewell and adieu to you, ladies of Spain! Our captain's commanded. -- 1st Nantucket Sailor Oh, boys, don't be sentimental; it's bad for the digestion! Take a tonic, follow me! ( Sings, and all follow.) Our captain stood upon the deck, A spy-glass in his hand, A viewing of those gallant whales That blew at every strand. Oh, your tubs in your boats, my boys, And by your braces stand, And we'll have one of those fine whales, Hand, boys, over hand! So, be cheery, my lads!
| 1 |
84 |
Silvia-Moreno-Garcia-Silver-Nitr.txt
| 4 |
You might as well have held up a sign that said ‘murder suspect right this way.’ ” Montserrat hated it when Tristán slipped into using endearments during arguments. It had been common in his household growing up, but there was nothing that could fuel her rage more than his passive-aggressive dropping of a sweet word. Especially “my love.” She shoved him, and he collided with the shuttered front of a shop, his back making a loud thud when it hit the steel. “Excuse me for panicking. Next time I stumble onto a dead man I’ll wear a suit!” Montserrat’s hands were pressed against his chest, and she glared up at him before attempting to slide away, but he caught her wrist and held her in place. “Don’t you remember what happened with that Molinet kid a few months back? They found the maid dead in his house, and they said he’d done it because he was a Satanist. And the proof of his Satanism was that he had a Stephen King collection, a copy of Süskind’s Perfume, and a few heavy metal records in his room. “Cops always try to pin it on an easy target. I should know,” he added, recalling the fuss after Karina passed away. “Orgy in Cuernavaca ends in deadly crash,” that’s what the newspapers said, and he had never been able to shake off that aura of crime and debauchery from himself. Montserrat gave him the tiniest nod, looking away from his face. “I was scared, okay? That’s why I’m pissed off. I needed you that night.” “I know,” he muttered. The tension between them was dissipating. He hated it when they quarreled. It left him a mess. He never knew how to properly apologize. “Why were you in Abel’s apartment?” he asked. “Abel said he was going to die. He had a premonition. Everything seemed fine and then he called me in a panic.” “Did you tell the police this?” “No. I may be dumb, but I’m not that stupid.” He sighed and let go of Montserrat’s hand. The haberdashery closed its shutters with a loud clang at the same moment the lamps went on. “Tell me what happened.” She did, starting with their meeting at the Zona Rosa, then ending by recounting her conversation with the cops and the questions they had peppered her with. Tristán reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette, toying with it before pressing the tip against the lighter’s flame and giving her a weary look. “There’s something else, isn’t there?” “When I was in Abel’s room there was a silence.” “You mean a noise?” “No, a silence. Or rather, it was a presence that seemed to muffle the room. It was unnatural; I have never experienced anything like it. I don’t think Abel lied when he said there are such a thing as curses and spells. We need to get back into Abel’s apartment. I can pick the lock, it won’t be a problem.” “It would be a big problem if someone saw us doing that.” That, plus
| 0 |
95 |
USS-Lincoln.txt
| 2 |
and Arrow pilots better than going up against three Ziu armadas?” The response was unanimous. “Yes!” I said, “Helm, swing us around and get us moving. I guess we’re going to jump.” “Shit! Incoming! Captain, smart missiles inbound,” Akari said, tension in her voice. “God, they’re fast.” She looked to Grimes. “Get us moving! Now!” Chapter 8 It was rare to see Coogong sitting at a console on the bridge, but here he was; even with his seat raised as high as it would go, the Thine scientist was on his knees, leaning over the console’s control board. Grimes had relinquished all Helm control to Coogong. All of their fates were in the small alien’s twig-like hands. The halo display was our only reference for what was happening—our three-conjoined-spacecraft monstrosity tearing through local space at incredible speeds, coming way too close to various-sized chunks of the destroyed world. For the umpteenth time I had to remind myself to trust Coogong, to have faith … And if I can’t? Well, we’d be screwed either way, with the Ziu fast on our heels. Coogong said, “Ship’s AI is manufacturing our wormhole in three, two, one!” And there it was, several thousand kilometers in front of us. The spatial aberration’s yawning open mouth just now forming. Stabilizing. Akari directed my attention to a secondary feed, one that showed our relative position to that of the quickly advancing Ziu missiles. I said, “Coogong, why are we slowing?” Coming up through the deck plates, I’d actually felt our drive vibrations reduce. Seeing the feed only confirmed my assumptions. “Captain, we must duplicate the Adams’ speed exactly as when we approached that wormhole prior to arriving here.” He glanced at the feed, and I saw apprehension on his worm-like face. He said, “Those incoming missiles are out of my control. Do not attempt to fire on them. Any fluctuation, even by a fraction of our rate of speed could be … well, catastrophic.” I raised my palms. “This is your show, Coogong.” Overhead, Sir Calvin’s British voice began a countdown. “Ten … nine … eight …” I knew the plan was to jump the three ships at a precise moment, right into the mouth of that quickly approaching wormhole, just as Adams had done previously. But my confidence in the whole process was giving me pause. This was little more than an unproven experiment—an experiment where there would be no redos, no second chances. Was I really willing to risk the lives of these crew members all on Coogong’s best-guess hunch? “Five … four … three …” The Ziu missiles were almost upon us. This was happening. “Two … one …” Adams, Portent, and Boundless Wrath jumped. I closed my eyes. I held my breath. The ship shook violently, and I was thrown to the deck; I heard a series of loud clangs and bangs. Someone yelped. Someone else cursed. The overhead crystal chandeliers swung and musically clinked like the highest piano notes. Realizing I’d bonked my head, I brought fingertips to my forehead; they came away bloody.
| 0 |
12 |
Fahrenheit 451.txt
| 18 |
the brass pole, to their dismay slid them down into darkness, into the blast and cough and suction of the gaseous dragon roaring to life! "Hey !" They rounded a corner in thunder and siren, with concussion of tyres, with scream of rubber, with a shift of kerosene bulk in the glittery brass tank, like the food in the stomach of a giant; with Montag's fingers jolting off the silver rail, swinging into cold space, with the wind tearing his hair back from his head, with the wind whistling in his teeth, and him all the while thinking of the women, the chaff women in his parlour tonight, with the kernels blown out from under them by a neon wind, and his silly damned reading of a book to them. How like trying to put out fires with water-pistols, how senseless and insane. One rage turned in for another. One anger displacing another. When would he stop being entirely mad and be quiet, be very quiet indeed? "Here we go!" Montag looked up. Beatty never drove, but he was driving tonight, slamming the Salamander around corners, leaning forward high on the driver's throne, his massive black slicker flapping out behind so that he seemed a great black bat flying above the engine, over the brass numbers, taking the full wind. "Here we go to keep the world happy, Montag !" Beatty's pink, phosphorescent cheeks glimmered in the high darkness, and he was smiling furiously. "Here we are!" The Salamander boomed to a halt, throwing men off in slips and clumsy hops. Montag stood fixing his raw eyes to the cold bright rail under his clenched fingers. I can't do it, he thought. How can I go at this new assignment, how can I go on burning things? I can't go in this place. Beatty, smelling of the wind through which he had rushed, was at Montag's elbow. "All right, Montag?" The men ran like cripples in their clumsy boots, as quietly as spiders. At last Montag raised his eyes and turned. Beatty was watching his face. "Something the matter, Montag?" "Why," said Montag slowly, "we've stopped in front of my house." PART III BURNING BRIGHT LIGHTS flicked on and house-doors opened all down the street, to watch the carnival set up. Montag and Beatty stared, one with dry satisfaction, the other with disbelief, at the house before them, this main ring in which torches would be juggled and fire eaten. "Well," said Beatty, "now you did it. Old Montag wanted to fly near the sun and now that he's burnt his damn wings, he wonders why. Didn't I hint enough when I sent the Hound around your place?" Montag's face was entirely numb and featureless; he felt his head turn like a stone carving to the dark place next door, set in its bright borders of flowers. Beatty snorted. "Oh, no! You weren't fooled by that little idiot's routine, now, were you? Flowers, butterflies, leaves, sunsets, oh, hell! It's all in her file. I'll be damned. I've hit the bullseye. Look at
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39 |
The Mysteries of Udolpho.txt
| 18 |
window; it was indeed the carriage, and he returned to his seat without speaking. The moment was now come when they must part. St. Aubert told Valancourt, that he hoped he would never pass La Vallee without favouring him with a visit; and Valancourt, eagerly thanking him, assured him that he never would; as he said which he looked timidly at Emily, who tried to smile away the seriousness of her spirits. They passed a few minutes in interesting conversation, and St. Aubert then led the way to the carriage, Emily and Valancourt following in silence. The latter lingered at the door several minutes after they were seated, and none of the party seemed to have courage enough to say--Farewell. At length, St. Aubert pronounced the melancholy word, which Emily passed to Valancourt, who returned it, with a dejected smile, and the carriage drove on. The travellers remained, for some time, in a state of tranquil pensiveness, which is not unpleasing. St. Aubert interrupted it by observing, 'This is a very promising young man; it is many years since I have been so much pleased with any person, on so short an acquaintance. He brings back to my memory the days of my youth, when every scene was new and delightful!' St. Aubert sighed, and sunk again into a reverie; and, as Emily looked back upon the road they had passed, Valancourt was seen, at the door of the little inn, following them with his eyes. Her perceived her, and waved his hand; and she returned the adieu, till the winding road shut her from his sight. 'I remember when I was about his age,' resumed St. Aubert, 'and I thought, and felt exactly as he does. The world was opening upon me then, now--it is closing.' 'My dear sir, do not think so gloomily,' said Emily in a trembling voice, 'I hope you have many, many years to live--for your own sake-- for MY sake.' 'Ah, my Emily!' replied St. Aubert, 'for thy sake! Well- I hope it is so.' He wiped away a tear, that was stealing down his cheek, threw a smile upon his countenance, and said in a cheering voice, 'there is something in the ardour and ingenuousness of youth, which is particularly pleasing to the contemplation of an old man, if his feelings have not been entirely corroded by the world. It is cheering and reviving, like the view of spring to a sick person; his mind catches somewhat of the spirit of the season, and his eyes are lighted up with a transient sunshine. Valancourt is this spring to me.' Emily, who pressed her father's hand affectionately, had never before listened with so much pleasure to the praises he bestowed; no, not even when he had bestowed them on herself. They travelled on, among vineyards, woods, and pastures, delighted with the romantic beauty of the landscape, which was bounded, on one side, by the grandeur of the Pyrenees, and, on the other, by the ocean; and, soon after noon, they reached the town of Colioure, situated
| 1 |
90 |
The-Lost-Bookshop.txt
| 43 |
of the long window overlooking the square and he gestured for me to sit. ‘I will make us some tea.’ He arrived back at the table with a silver tray bearing an antique silver teapot with ornate patterns and little glasses printed with gold writing, which looked to be Arabic. However, it was the scent of sweet mint that surprised me the most. ‘Have you ever tasted Moroccan tea?’ he asked. I shook my head and watched as he lifted the lid of the teapot and stirred a copious amount of thick leaves into the hot water. Then he set about the ritual of pouring the tea into the glasses from an impossible height. My eyes widened as he held the teapot further and further away from the glass on the tray and he tried not to laugh. ‘It is the traditional way,’ he replied simply, before handing me the glass. I blew on the surface of the golden-hued tea and let the exotic flavours fill my nose. Some musicians had begun playing in the square, gitane music, with a rhythmic guitar and virtuosic violin. It filled the spaces where our words could not. I had spent the entire time searching the room for somewhere to hide my gaze: the silk rug on the floor, the strange leather slippers by the door that came to a point at the toe, a small wooden table with a gold inlay of Moorish design. Finally, I looked back to him and realised he had been staring at me the entire time. Without breaking his gaze, he stood up, took the glass from my hand and placed it on the tray beside his. Taking my hand in his, he raised me up and I stood so close to him that I could breathe his breath. He bent his head and my lips parted of their own volition. I felt his warm tongue inside my mouth and my only thought was of wanting more. We held each other tighter and I had the sensation that I wouldn’t be close enough unless … ‘Opaline,’ he said huskily, breaking my chain of thought. ‘Yes?’ ‘Tell me if you wish to stay or leave,’ he said, his breath heavy. ‘For I fear I will not have the chivalry to ask you again.’ All mental activity had ceased. For the first time in my life, my sensuality took the lead. ‘Stay.’ The room was narrow, just large enough for the brass bed. A voile curtain fluttered in the breeze from the open window. It was almost dark, save for a low candle guttering in the corner on a table. All of those years in my adolescence, how I worried that I wouldn’t know what to do! If only I had understood that there is no ‘knowing’. Only instinct. His body glowed golden in the candlelight, the sweat on his skin like an aphrodisiac to me. ‘Did it hurt?’ he asked. ‘Only a little,’ I replied. Pain is the price of pleasure, I had read somewhere once. I was no longer a
| 0 |
29 |
Tarzan of the Apes.txt
| 91 |
and sorrow of John Clayton and his wife Alice, from the day they left England until an hour before he was struck down by Kerchak. D'Arnot read aloud. At times his voice broke, and he was forced to stop reading for the pitiful hopelessness that spoke between the lines. Occasionally he glanced at Tarzan; but the ape-man sat upon his haunches, like a carven image, his eyes fixed upon the ground. Only when the little babe was mentioned did the tone of the diary alter from the habitual note of despair which had crept into it by degrees after the first two months upon the shore. Then the passages were tinged with a subdued happiness that was even sadder than the rest. Chapter 25 143 One entry showed an almost hopeful spirit. To-day our little boy is six months old. He is sitting in Alice's lap beside the table where I am writing--a happy, healthy, perfect child. Somehow, even against all reason, I seem to see him a grown man, taking his father's place in the world--the second John Clayton--and bringing added honors to the house of Greystoke. There--as though to give my prophecy the weight of his endorsement--he has grabbed my pen in his chubby fists and with his inkbegrimed little fingers has placed the seal of his tiny finger prints upon the page. And there, on the margin of the page, were the partially blurred imprints of four wee fingers and the outer half of the thumb. When D'Arnot had finished the diary the two men sat in silence for some minutes. "Well! Tarzan of the Apes, what think you?" asked D'Arnot. "Does not this little book clear up the mystery of your parentage? "Why man, you are Lord Greystoke." "The book speaks of but one child," he replied. "Its little skeleton lay in the crib, where it died crying for nourishment, from the first time I entered the cabin until Professor Porter's party buried it, with its father and mother, beside the cabin. "No, that was the babe the book speaks of--and the mystery of my origin is deeper than before, for I have thought much of late of the possibility of that cabin having been my birthplace. I am afraid that Kala spoke the truth," he concluded sadly. D'Arnot shook his head. He was unconvinced, and in his mind had sprung the determination to prove the correctness of his theory, for he had discovered the key which alone could unlock the mystery, or consign it forever to the realms of the unfathomable. A week later the two men came suddenly upon a clearing in the forest. In the distance were several buildings surrounded by a strong palisade. Between them and the enclosure stretched a cultivated field in which a number of negroes were working. The two halted at the edge of the jungle. Tarzan fitted his bow with a poisoned arrow, but D'Arnot placed a hand upon his arm. "What would you do, Tarzan?" he asked. "They will try to kill us if they see us," replied Tarzan.
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48 |
Wuthering Heights.txt
| 10 |
they are out of my way. I've seen none like Edgar." "You may see some. And he won't always be hand- some and young, and may not always be rich." "He is now; and I have only to do with the present. I wish you would speak rationally." "Well, that settles it. If you have only to do with the present, marry Mr. Linton." "I don't want your permission for that---I shall marry him; and yet you have not told me whether I'm right." "Perfectly right, if people be right to marry only for the present. And now, let us hear what you are unhappy about. Your brother will be pleased; the old lady and gentleman will not object, I think; you will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respecta- ble one; and you love Edgar, and Edgar loves you. All seems smooth and easy. Where is the obstacle?" "Here, and here!" replied Catherine, striking one hand on her forehead and the other on her breast; "in whichever place the soul lives. In my soul and in my heart I'm convinced I'm wrong." "That's very strange. I cannot make it out." "It's my secret. But if you will not mock at me, I'll explain it. I can't do it distinctly, but I'll give you a feeling of how I feel." She seated herself by me again; her countenance grew sadder and graver, and her clasped hands trem- bled. "Nelly, do you never dream queer dreams?" she said suddenly, after some minutes' reflection. "Yes; now and then," I answered. "And so do I. I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the colour of my mind. And this is one. I'm going to tell it; but take care not to smile at any part of it." "Oh! don't, Miss Catherine!" I cried. "We're dismal enough without conjuring up ghosts and visions to per- plex us. Come, come, be merry and like yourself! Look at little Hareton! He's dreaming nothing dreary. How sweetly he smiles in his sleep!" "Yes; and how sweetly his father curses in his soli- tude! You remember him, I dare say, when he was just such another as that chubby thing---nearly as young and innocent. However, Nelly, I shall oblige you to listen; it's not long, and I've no power to be merry to- night." "I won't hear it, I won't hear it!" I repeated hastily. I was superstitious about dreams then, and am still; and Catherine had an unusual gloom in her aspect that made me dread something from which I might shape a prophecy and foresee a fearful catastrophe. She was vexed, but she did not proceed. Apparently taking up another subject, she recommenced in a short time. "If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable." "Because you are not fit to go there," I answered. "All sinners would be miserable in heaven." "But it is not for that. I dreamt
| 1 |
21 |
Little Women.txt
| 34 |
smile upon everyone in a general state of beatitude. After that, the little brown hood slipped through the hedge nearly every day, and the great drawing room was haunted by a tuneful spirit that came and went unseen. She never knew that Mr. Laurence opened his study door to hear the old-fashioned airs he liked. She never saw Laurie mount guard in the hall to warn the servants away. She never suspected that the exercise books and new songs which she found in the rack were put there for her especial benefit, and when he talked to her about music at home, she only thought how kind he was to tell things that helped her so much. So she enjoyed herself heartily, and found, what isn't always the case, that her granted wish was all she had hoped. Perhaps it was because she was so grateful for this blessing that a greater was given her. At any rate she deserved both. "Mother, I'm going to work Mr. Laurence a pair of slippers. He is so kind to me, I must thank him, and I don't know any other way. Can I do it?" asked Beth, a few weeks after that eventful call of his. "Yes, dear. It will please him very much, and be a nice way of thanking him. The girls will help you about them, and I will pay for the making up," replied Mrs. March, who took peculiar pleasure in granting Beth's requests because she so seldom asked anything for herself. After many serious discussions with Meg and Jo, the pattern was chosen, the materials bought, and the slippers begun. A cluster of grave yet cheerful pansies on a deeper purple ground was pronounced very appropriate and pretty, and beth worked away early and late, with occasional lifts over hard parts. She was a nimble little needlewoman, and they were finished before anyone got tired of them. Then she wrote a short, simple note, and with Laurie's help, got them smuggled onto the study table one morning before the old gentleman was up. When this excitement was over, Beth waited to see what would happen. All day passed a a part of the next before any acknowledgement arrived, and she was beginning to fear she had offended her crochety friend. On the afternoon of the second day, she went out to do an errand, and give poor Joanna, the invalid doll, her daily exercise. As she came up the street, on her return, she saw three, yes, four heads popping in and out of the parlor windows, and the moment they saw her, several hands were waved, and several joyful voices screamed . . . "Here's a letter from the old gentleman! Come quick, and read it!" "Oh, Beth, he's sent you . . ." began Amy, gesticulating with unseemly energy, but she got no further, for Jo quenched her by slamming down the window. Beth hurried on in a flutter of suspense. At the door her sisters seized and bore her to the parlor in a triumphal procession,
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92 |
The-Scorched-Throne-1-Sara-Hashe.txt
| 3 |
you go, he will follow. A relationship with another person will falter under his commitment to you,” I pointed out. Sefa heaved a sigh, opening the doors to the second wardrobe adjacent to the bed. A dozen ivory gowns hung inside. “We have depended on each other for too long. He thinks letting himself love someone will break his attachment to me. I don’t know how to prove to him he doesn’t owe me his life.” Sefa admired the stitching on the hem of a delicate silk gown. She glanced over as I slit open a cushion and stuffed my arm inside. “Are these questions new to you?” I flipped the cushion to its good side and shoved it back to the seat. “It was not my place to ask before.” “But it is now?” Sefa asked, smiling. She parsed the items on Vaida’s beauty table, knocking perfumes and powders together. “If it means anything, it has always been your place to ask.” I stopped slashing Vaida’s cushions. Sefa always did this. Casually offered her heart to me. I had thought it was a personal failing, the ease with which she gave it away. But Sefa—Sefa was stingy with her confidences. She simply chose to trust me, in particular, over and over again. “Sylvia? What is it?” Sefa abandoned the table, perching on the divan beside me. Essiya, Hanim warned. I swallowed past my dry throat. “You were right.” “Right about what?” Sefa frowned. She scrutinized my downcast gaze. Understanding flashed across her features, and her jaw dropped. “Oh, Sylvia, no.” The words spilled with the force of blood bursting from a severed artery. “The Heir—he enrages me, Sefa. I have never encountered a more paranoid man in my life. He lives from one theory to the next, manipulating people with utter detachment, and I can never guess what horrors his mind will concoct. Did you know he eats with his right hand when he is in a good mood and his left when he isn’t? Why do I even remember that? And if he touches me, it does not—I don’t—” I shoved the dagger into the cushion, tearing a diagonal line across the velvet surface. I could not bear to look at Sefa. “He is Nizahl’s Commander. I should burn with hatred every second spent in his presence.” “Do not tell me what you should feel,” Sefa said. Brown eyes met mine without a trace of judgment. “Tell me what is true.” How could I tell her I did not have the words? Words… those were the least of my troubles. They were not my eyes, fastening to him as soon as he entered a room. My heart, beating in double at his nearness. But worst of all, I could not admit to Sefa that the Nizahl Heir made me feel most like myself—and myself was not someone I had the luxury of learning. Vaida’s voice echoed from outside. “She’s coming!” Sefa panicked. “Into the red wardrobe. Go!” I shoved her from the divan, waiting until she pulled the doors shut
| 0 |
83 |
Romantic-Comedy.txt
| 75 |
if I’d lost him already. My regret hadn’t been total as I wound south around the roads of Topanga. But my regret was already strong, and grew stronger as the minutes and hours passed. Why had I voluntarily left? What was I proving, and to whom? Was this when my interlude with Noah would begin to recede as a pandemic fever dream? I’d checked into the hotel at 3:30, then lay on the bed for a while, planning to read and instead crying myself to sleep for an afternoon nap. When I awakened, I wasn’t sure what time it was, or at first, where I was, and then I realized: 7:18 p.m., and a hotel. I thought of ordering dinner, but instead I texted Viv and Henrietta: Had bad conversation with NB, now in hotel, maybe things are over From Viv: Oh no what happened From Henrietta: Are you okay From me: Weird part is I think he wants a serious relationship/wants me to stay here From Viv: Of course he does you’re a catch From Henrietta: Is that what fight was about From me: Kind of From me: Would it be crazy if I don’t come back to TNO From Henrietta: Then who will write my sketches about the 35 year old who hasn’t figured out how to use a tampon From Henrietta: JK it’s your one wild and precious From Viv: Do you WANT to stay out there From me: I don’t know From Viv: Pretend it’s Monday and you’re about to leave your apt and come to 66 and sit in Nigel’s office for the pitch meeting From Viv: Are you psyched to be back or are you over it all From Henrietta: As you inhale the aroma of Danny’s burps From Henrietta: Or maybe not bc we’ll all be wearing masks? For almost a minute, I held the phone, biting my lip. Then I wrote, It makes me so sad to think of not seeing you guys in the middle of the night From Henrietta: FWIW I’m willing to haunt your dreams * * * — In the morning, I went out for coffee and an egg sandwich that I ate standing outside the café, then I walked on the beach before it got crowded, as the surf roared beside me, not washing away my thoughts. Back in the room, I considered texting Noah but instead googled his name. The so-called top stories were about our hike, and I looked at the photos again, and again felt dismayed at the fit of my leggings, though the dismay was almost immediately eclipsed by a nostalgia for this moment four days before, when we’d been casually holding hands, casually chatting. I took my laptop onto the balcony, sat, and created a new document that I named Pros/Cons. Then I observed the blinking cursor, listing neither pros nor cons of quitting TNO and moving to L.A. I needed some classical music to help me. I went into the room to find my earbuds, and when I returned to the balcony, my
| 0 |
60 |
Divine Rivals.txt
| 99 |
so guarded.” Perhaps it begins with one person. Someone you trust. You remove a piece of armor for them; you let the light stream in, even if it makes you wince. Perhaps that is how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel. I say this to you knowing full well that I am riddled with contradictions. As you’ve read in my other letters, I love my brother’s bravery, but I hate how he’s abandoned me to fight for a god. I love my mother, but I hate what booze has done to her, as if it’s drowning her and I don’t know how to save her. I love the words I write until I soon realize how much I hate them, as if I am destined to always be at war within myself. And yet I keep moving forward. On some days, I’m afraid, but most days, I simply want to achieve those things I dream of. A world where my brother is home safe, and my mother is well, and I write words that I don’t despise half of the time. Words that will mean something to someone else, as if I’ve cast a line into the dark and felt a tug in the distance. All right, now I’ve let the words spill out. I’ve given you a piece of armor, I suppose. But I don’t think you’ll mind. She sent the letter over the threshold, telling herself not to expect a reply. At least, not for a little while. Iris began to work on her essay, trying to sense the shape of it. But her attention was on her wardrobe door, on the shadows that lined the threshold and the stranger who dwelled beyond it. She paused to check the time. It was half past ten at night. She considered leaving the flat to search for her mother. The worry was a nagging weight in her chest, but Iris wasn’t sure where she should go. If it would be safe for her to walk alone this late at night. She’ll return soon. Just like she always does. When the clubs close at midnight. A letter passed through the portal, bringing her back to the present. Iris reached for it. The paper crinkled in her fingers as she read: One person. One piece of armor. I’ll strive for this. Thank you. {10} Station Nine The office was overflowing with felicitations the following day. Iris leaned against the tea sideboard, watching as Roman was greeted with grins and claps on the back. “Congratulations, Kitt!” “I hear Miss Little is beautiful and accomplished. What a catch.” “When’s the wedding?” Roman smiled and received it all graciously, dressed in starched clothes and polished leather shoes, his black hair combed out of his eyes and his face shaven. Another perfect appearance. If Iris didn’t know better—if she hadn’t sat on a park bench with him and heard him confess how reluctant he was to marry a stranger—she would have thought he was thrilled. She
| 0 |
47 |
Ulysses.txt
| 15 |
commercial advice (having taken care of pence, the pounds having taken care of themselves). Leopold Bloom (aged 6) had accompanied these narrations by constant consultation of a geographical map of Europe (political) and by suggestions for the establishment of affiliated business premises in the various centres mentioned. Had time equally but differently obliterated the memory of these migrations in narrator and listener? In narrator by the access of years and in consequence of the use of narcotic toxin: in listener by the access of years and in consequence of the action of distraction upon vicarious experiences. What idiosyncracies of the narrator were concomitant products of amnesia? Occasionally he ate without having previously removed his hat. Occasionally he drank voraciously the juice of gooseberry fool from an inclined plate. Occasionally he removed from his lips the traces of food by means of a lacerated envelope or other accessible fragment of paper. What two phenomena of senescence were more frequent? The myopic digital calculation of coins, eructation consequent upon repletion. What object offered partial consolation for these reminiscences? The endowment policy, the bank passbook, the certificate of the possession of scrip. Reduce Bloom by cross multiplication of reverses of fortune, from which these supports protected him, and by elimination of all positive values to a negligible negative irrational unreal quantity. Successively, in descending helotic order: Poverty: that of the outdoor hawker of imitation jewellery, the dun for the recovery of bad and doubtful debts, the poor rate and deputy cess collector. Mendicancy: that of the fraudulent bankrupt with negligible assets paying 1s. 4d. in the pound, sandwichman, distributor of throwaways, nocturnal vagrant, insinuating sycophant, maimed sailor, blind stripling, superannuated bailiffs man, marfeast, lickplate, spoilsport, pickthank, eccentric public laughingstock seated on bench of public park under discarded perforated umbrella. Destitution: the inmate of Old Man's House (Royal Hospital) Kilmainham, the inmate of Simpson's Hospital for reduced but respectable men permanently disabled by gout or want of sight. Nadir of misery: the aged impotent disfranchised ratesupported moribund lunatic pauper. With which attendant indignities? The unsympathetic indifference of previously amiable females, the contempt of muscular males, the acceptance of fragments of bread, the simulated ignorance of casual acquaintances, the latration of illegitimate unlicensed vagabond dogs, the infantile discharge of decomposed vegetable missiles, worth little or nothing, nothing or less than nothing. By what could such a situation be precluded? By decease (change of state): by departure (change of place). Which preferably? The latter, by the line of least resistance. What considerations rendered departure not entirely undesirable? Constant cohabitation impeding mutual toleration of personal defects. The habit of independent purchase increasingly cultivated. The necessity to counteract by impermanent sojourn the permanence of arrest. What considerations rendered departure not irrational? The parties concerned, uniting, had increased and multiplied, which being done, offspring produced and educed to maturity, the parties, if not disunited were obliged to reunite for increase and multiplication, which was absurd, to form by reunion the original couple of uniting parties, which was impossible. What considerations rendered departure desirable? The attractive character of certain localities in Ireland
| 1 |
18 |
Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy.txt
| 80 |
away a happy drunken night smashing them to bits with iron mallets. Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz was a fairly typical Vogon in that he was thoroughly vile. Also, he did not like hitch hikers. Somewhere in a small dark cabin buried deep in the intestines of Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz's flagship, a small match flared nervously. The owner of the match was not a Vogon, but he knew all about them and was right to be nervous. His name was Ford Prefect*. He looked about the cabin but could see very little; strange monstrous shadows loomed and leaped with the tiny flickering flame, but all was quiet. He breathed a silent thank you to the Dentrassis. The Dentrassis are an unruly tribe of gourmands, a wild but pleasant bunch whom the Vogons had recently taken to employing as catering staff on their long haul fleets, on the strict understanding that they keep themselves very much to themselves. This suited the Dentrassis fine, because they loved Vogon money, which is one of the hardest currencies in space, but loathed the Vogons themselves. The only sort of Vogon a Dentrassi liked to see was an annoyed Vogon. It was because of this tiny piece of information that Ford Prefect was not now a whiff of hydrogen, ozone and carbon monoxide. He heard a slight groan. By the light of the match he saw a heavy shape moving slightly on the floor. Quickly he shook the match out, reached in his pocket, found what he was looking for and took it out. He crouched on the floor. The shape moved again. Ford Prefect said: "I bought some peanuts." Arthur Dent moved, and groaned again, muttering incoherently. "Here, have some," urged Ford, shaking the packet again, "if you've never been through a matter transference beam before you've probably lost some salt and protein. The beer you had should have cushioned your system a bit." "Whhhrrrr..." said Arthur Dent. He opened his eyes. "It's dark," he said. "Yes," said Ford Prefect, "it's dark." "No light," said Arthur Dent. "Dark, no light." One of the things Ford Prefect had always found hardest to understand about human beings was their habit of continually stating and repeating the obvious, as in It's a nice day, or You're very tall, or Oh dear you seem to have fallen down a thirty-foot well, are you alright? At first Ford had formed a theory to account for this strange behaviour. If human beings don't keep exercising their lips, he thought, their mouths probably seize up. After a few months' consideration and observation he abandoned this theory in favour of a new one. If they don't keep on exercising their lips, he thought, their brains start working. After a while he abandoned this one as well as being obstructively cynical and decided he quite liked human beings after all, but he always remained desperately worried about the terrible number of things they didn't know about. "Yes," he agreed with Arthur, "no light." He helped Arthur to some peanuts. "How do you feel?" he asked. "Like a
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55 |
Blowback.txt
| 43 |
He thought the Saudis would retaliate and that higher gas prices would hurt him politically. Trump effectively proposed giving the regime a free pass. He later admitted as much to the press. Donald Trump’s look-the-other-way foreign policy emboldened the world’s dictators. By paying less attention to human rights and democracy, Trump broadcast a willingness to tolerate repressive behavior from China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and other dictatorships. The attitude will be shared by whoever takes his place. “The populist MAGA movement has created confusion about who our allies are and who our adversaries are, and that puts America in grave danger,” explained Fiona Hill, one of Trump’s top former NSC aides. The moral equivalence has “made us weaker in the contest with Russia and with China.” “We had to push through actions sort of by stealth to counter the Russians,” Hill explained of her time in the White House under Trump. “Putin had him wrapped around his finger the entire time.… He was always kissing Putin’s ass. He wanted Putin’s adulation.” I asked her what motivated the affection for dictators. “One of the reasons Trump didn’t want to clamp down on autocrats is because he wanted to do the same things as them,” she explained. In Hill’s view, this reflected broader MAGA ideology. The movement itself is quasi-authoritarian. She pointed to pro-Trump members of Congress who have continued to call for the United States to pull back from supporting Ukraine, a move that would be a permission slip for Putin to pursue his ambitions in Eastern Europe. Eugene Vindman (brother of Alexander Vindman), served as a top NSC lawyer under Trump. He predicted another MAGA president would allow Russia to absorb neighboring countries, including Belarus and Moldova. “A country of 140 million becomes a country of over 200 million,” he explained, “and a resurgent Russian empire. We’d be in a position where Europe would be far more subject to Russian pressure.” China will also feel empowered to spread its influence. Vindman says Trump or a MAGA successor likely wouldn’t protect Taiwan against a Chinese invasion, despite a multi-decade U.S. commitment to defend the island. Not everyone agrees on this point. A number of Trump’s foreign policy aides argue that—despite the MAGA crowd’s affinity for autocrats—many of them support a tougher stance against China. However, the fact that there is stark divergence within the movement on this question suggests that Beijing might be able to divide-and-paralyze any U.S. response to Chinese aggression under the administration of the Next Trump. And what if the sword is turned on America itself? The U.S. military is one of democracy’s last lines of defense, meant to repel foreign aggression. If it’s turned inward, it can go from a guardrail of democracy to an existential threat. Just as a future MAGA president is likely to commandeer the domestic security apparatus for political purposes, he or she may also deploy the military to assert control inside U.S. territory. Until the Trump administration, the proposition had sounded like the plot of a bad fiction novel. But Donald Trump was a
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13 |
Fifty-Shades-Of-Grey.txt
| 14 |
amber liquid. Brandy? Whiskey? I have no idea. One long leg is crossed at the ankle over his knee. He’s wearing black socks and dress shoes. His right el- bow rests on the arm of the chair, his hand up to his chin, and he’s slowly running his index finger rhythmically back and forth over his lower lip. In the early morn- ing light, his eyes burn with grave intensity but his general expression is com- pletely unreadable. My heart almost stops. He’s here. How did he get here? He must have left New York last night. How long has he been here watching me sleep? “Hi,” I whisper. He regards me coolly, and my heart stutters once more. Oh no. He moves his long fingers away from his mouth, tosses back the remainder of his drink, and places the glass on the bedside table. I half expect him to kiss me, but he doesn’t. He sits back, continuing to regard me, his expression impassive. “Hello,” he says finally, his voice hushed. And I know he’s still mad. Really mad. “You’re back.” “It would appear so.” 211/551 Slowly I pull myself up into a sitting position, not taking my eyes off him. My mouth is dry. “How long have you been sitting there watching me sleep?” “Long enough.” “You’re still mad.” I can hardly speak the words. He gazes at me, as if considering his response. “Mad,” he says as if testing the word, weighing up its nuances, its meaning. “No, Ana. I am way, way beyond mad.” Holy crap. I try to swallow, but it’s hard with a dry mouth. “Far beyond mad . . . that doesn’t sound good.” He gazes at me, completely impassive, and doesn’t respond. A stark silence stretches between us. I reach over to my glass of water and take a welcome sip, trying to bring my erratic heart rate under control. “Ryan caught Jack.” I try a different tack, and I place my glass beside his on the bedside table. “I know,” he says icily. Of course, he knows. “Are you going to be monosyllabic for long?” His eyebrows move fractionally registering his surprise as if he hadn’t expec- ted this question. “Yes,” he says finally. Oh . . . okay. What to do? Defense—the best form of attack. “I’m sorry I stayed out.” “Are you?” “No,” I mutter after a pause, because it’s true. “Why say it then?” “Because I don’t want you to be mad at me.” He sighs heavily as if he’s been holding this tension for a thousand hours and runs his hand through his hair. He looks beautiful. Mad, but beautiful. I drink him in—Christian’s back—angry, but in one piece. “I think Detective Clark wants to talk to you.” “I’m sure he does.” “Christian, please . . .” “Please what?” “Don’t be so cold.” His eyebrows rise in surprise once more. “Anastasia, cold is not what I’m feeling at the moment. I’m burning. Burning with rage. I don’t know how to deal 212/551 with these”—he waves his hand searching for
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93 |
The-Silver-Ladies-Do-Lunch.txt
| 51 |
tottered away, heading towards the village green, hurrying home as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her. She didn’t want to talk to Neil now. She wasn’t sure what to say. She had no idea how she’d ever be able to talk to him about the affair with Carole Frost. Perhaps it was better just to say nothing at all right now. She’d go home, lie down, sober up and her head would clear. Then she’d know what to do. Lin was determined to find out the facts. She needed to be calm, lucid and assertive, to be sure about what was going on. She’d ask straight questions, demand honest answers. And once she knew the truth, she’d tell her cheating husband of fifty years exactly what she thought of him. 29 September was the warmest month of the year, the sun beating down so hard in Middleton Ferris that only Tina Gilchrist stayed outside during the fierce noonday heat. She was working in her allotment, watering vegetables in the sweltering sunlight with a hose pipe while everyone else did their best to stay cool. The Toomeys lazed on their barge, Devlin and Finn swimming in the river, Fergal cooking Joe Grey on the stove or dozing below deck. Gerald Harris abandoned the weeds in his garden to watch cricket on TV. Dangerous Dave retreated to the cool interior of his garage; he was busier than ever, and the money would be useful for Florence and the soon-to-arrive baby. It was as if Middleton Ferris was a melting oil painting in the sticky heat. Cecily sat in the garden drinking lemonade and playing guitar. She had developed an interest in the muddy guitar sound of Samantha Fish and coaxed Jack to help her find a cigar box guitar so that she could practise playing blues music. She was rehearsing daily, sitting by the open door, singing ‘Bulletproof’ until she got it perfect. Bobby Ledbury worked long hours in the fields on the tractors and harvesters with his grandfather George, although George’s pig Nadine would often be asleep in Lin’s garden, rolling in the soil to keep cool. Lin didn’t mind. She enjoyed the company. Neil was out every other day and Lin was quietly angry. She was rehearsing what to say, waiting for the right moment to speak her mind. Neil looked sad, going about his business without a word, wondering why his wife was so distant and preoccupied. Florence found she often needed to rest now. She did the occasional shift at Odile’s café, although Malia cheerily took on most of the work while Florence relaxed on the sofa, dozing or listening to Natalie repeat that she was better off without a fiancé. Apparently, Brandon had called round again to beg her to accept his pathetic apologies, but she would never have him back as long as she lived. She had other fish to fry. Josie spent a lot of time in the cemetery talking to Harry; it was cool there and afterwards she’d sit under the willow tree, thinking
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1 |
A Game of Thrones.txt
| 66 |
slops on the heads of the combatants. In the shadow of the wall, farmers stood beside their wagons, bellowing out, "Apples, the best apples, cheap at twice the price," and "Blood melons, sweet as honey," and "Turnips, onions, roots, here you go here, here you go, turnips, onions, roots, here you go here." The Mud Gate was open, and a squad of City Watchmen stood under the portcullis in their golden cloaks, leaning on spears. When a column of riders appeared from the west, the guardsmen sprang into action, shouting commands and moving the carts and foot traffic aside to let the knight enter with his escort. The first rider through the gate carried a long black banner. The silk rippled in the wind like a living thing; across the fabric was blazoned a night sky slashed with purple lightning. "Make way for Lord Beric!" the rider shouted. "Make wayfor Lord Befic!" And close behind came the young lord himself, a dashing I 246 GEORGE R.R. MARTIN figure on a black courser, with red-gold hair and a black satin cloak dusted with stars. "Here to fight in the Hand's tourney, my lord?" a guardsman called out to him. "Here to win the Hand's tourney," Lord Beric shouted back as the crowd cheered. Ned turned off the square where the Street of Steel began and followed its winding path up a long hill, past blacksmiths working at open forges, freeriders haggling over mail shirts, and grizzled ironmongers selling old blades and razors from their wagons. The farther they climbed, the larger the buildings grew. The man they wanted was all the way at the top of the hill, in a huge house of timber and plaster whose upper stories loomed over the narrow street. The double doors showed a hunting scene carved in ebony and weirwood. A pair of stone knights stood sentry at the entrance, armored in fanciful suits of polished red steel that transformed them into griffin and unicorn. Ned left his horse with Jacks and shouldered his way inside. The slim young serving girl took quick note of Ned's badge and the sigil on his doublet, and the master came hurrying out, all smiles and bows. "Wine for the King's Hand," he told the girl, gesturing Ned to a couch. "I am Tobho Mott, my lord, please, please, put yourself at ease." He wore a black velvet coat with hammers embroidered on the sleeves in silver thread, Around his neck was a heavy silver chain and a sapphire as large as a pigeon's egg. "If you are in need of new arms for the Hand's tourney, you have come to the right shop." Ned did not bother to correct him. "My work is costly, and I make no apologies for that, my lord," he said as he filled two matching silver goblets. "You will not find craftsmanship equal to mine anywhere in the Seven Kingdoms, I promise you. Visit every forge in King's Landing if you like, and compare for yourself. Any village smith can hammer out a shift of
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A Game of Thrones.txt
| 40 |
men." A mosseaten stone monolith loomed over the road, fifty feet tall. Viserys gazed at it with boredom in his eyes. "How long must we linger amidst these ruins before Drogo gives me my army? I grow tired of waiting." "The princess must be presented to the dosh khaleen . . ." "The crones, yes," her brother interrupted, "and there's to be some mummer's show of a prophecy for the whelp in her belly, you told me. A GAME OF THRONES 341 What is that to me? I'm tired of eating horsemeat and I'm sick of the stink of these savages." He sniffed at the wide, floppy sleeve of his tunic, where it was his custom to keep a sachet. It could not have helped much. The tunic was filthy. All the silk and heavy wools that Viserys had worn out of Pentos were stained by hard travel and rotted from sweat. Ser Jorah Mormont said, "The Western Market will have food more to your taste, Your Grace. The traders from the Free Cities come there to sell their wares. The khal will honor his promise in his own time." "He had better," Viserys said grimly. "I was promised a crown, and I mean to have it. The dragon is not mocked." Spying an obscene likeness of a woman with six breasts and a ferret's head, he rode off to inspect it more closely. Dany was relieved, yet no less anxious. "I pray that my sun-andstars will not keep him waiting too long," she told Ser Jorah when her brother was out of earshot. The knight looked after Viserys doubtfully. "Your brother should have bided his time in Pentos. There is no place for him in a khalasar. Illyrio tried to warn him." "He will go as soon as he has his ten thousand. My lord husband promised a golden crown." Ser Jorah grunted. "Yes, Khaleesi, but . . . the Dothraki look on these things differently than we do in the west. I have told him as much, as Illyrio told him, but your brother does not listen. The horselords are no traders. Viserys thinks he sold you, and now he wants his price. Yet Khal Drogo would say he had you as a gift. He will give Viserys a gift in return, yes . . . in his own time. You do not demand a gift, not of a khaL You do not demand anything of a khal." "It is not right to make him wait." Dany did not know why she was defending her brother, yet she was. "Viserys says he could sweep the Seven Kingdoms with ten thousand Dothraki screamers." Ser Jorah snorted. "Viserys could not sweep a stable with ten thousand brooms." Dany could not pretend to surprise at the disdain in his tone. "What . . . what if it were not Viserys?" she asked. "If it were someone else who led them? Someone stronger? Could the Dothraki truly conquer the Seven Kingdoms?" Ser Jorah's face grew thoughtful as their horses trod together down the godsway.
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3 |
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.txt
| 29 |
ain't no better way to put in time when you are lonesome; you can't stay so, you soon get over it. And so for three days and nights. No difference -- just the same thing. But the next day I went explor- ing around down through the island. I was boss of it; it all belonged to me, so to say, and I wanted to know all about it; but mainly I wanted to put in the time. I found plenty strawberries, ripe and prime; and green summer grapes, and green razberries; and the green blackberries was just beginning to show. They would all come handy by and by, I judged. Well, I went fooling along in the deep woods till I judged I warn't far from the foot of the island. I had my gun along, but I hadn't shot nothing; it was for protection; thought I would kill some game nigh home. About this time I mighty near stepped on a good-sized snake, and it went sliding off through the grass and flowers, and I after it, trying to get a shot at it. I clipped along, and all of a sudden I bounded right on to the ashes of a camp fire that was still smoking. My heart jumped up amongst my lungs. I never waited for to look further, but uncocked my gun and went sneaking back on my tiptoes as fast as ever I could. Every now and then I stopped a second amongst the thick leaves and listened, but my breath come so hard I couldn't hear nothing else. I slunk along an- other piece further, then listened again; and so on, and so on. If I see a stump, I took it for a man; if I trod on a stick and broke it, it made me feel like a person had cut one of my breaths in two and I only got half, and the short half, too. When I got to camp I warn't feeling very brash, there warn't much sand in my craw; but I says, this ain't no time to be fooling around. So I got all my traps into my canoe again so as to have them out of sight, and I put out the fire and scattered the ashes around to look like an old last year's camp, and then clumb a tree. I reckon I was up in the tree two hours; but I didn't see nothing, I didn't hear nothing -- I only THOUGHT I heard and seen as much as a thousand things. Well, I couldn't stay up there forever; so at last I got down, but I kept in the thick woods and on the lookout all the time. All I could get to eat was berries and what was left over from breakfast. By the time it was night I was pretty hungry. So when it was good and dark I slid out from shore before moonrise and paddled over to the Illinois bank -- about a quarter of a mile. I went out
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51 |
A Spell of Good Things.txt
| 95 |
Ìyá Ẹniọlá—look at my face, ehen—if I had the power to help you, I would.” “Please, I want…I want these children to go to school. It’s their only chance in life. I don’t have any property I’m going to leave them. I have nothing else to give them that can—” “You think I am happy to see you suffer like this? Why do you think I am angry with your husband? God has not blessed this family with wealth, but were you ever hungry? Look at the wells in your neck. If he knew he could not take care of you, why did he marry you? You too look at what you are wearing—were you not better dressed when you lived here?” Ìyá Ẹniọlá looked down at her washed-out ankara dress. The hem had come apart, and if you stared long enough, you could see that it had been patched at the hip. “Let me stop talking about your husband before this becomes another fight.” “Okay sir.” “But, Ìyá Ẹniọlá, I can’t afford to give you more than one thousand five hundred naira. Me too, I just finished paying school fees last week. My purse is still recovering from that.” Ìyá Ẹniọlá leaned forward. Surely she’d misheard. “You just finished paying what?” “School fees, I said school fees.” “For?” “My children.” “Children? It’s okay, Alàgbà, you don’t want to give me the money. No problem.” “Well, our God did not abandon me where you left me.” He gestured towards the door. “You might have seen them outside when you were coming in, my wife has two children from her first marriage.” “Wife?” “Yes, because the sun never sets on God’s mercies, I got married last year. My wife’s first husband died after the last child was born, and since then, she was shouldering the responsibilities of those children alone. That is until last year when we got married. Now they are my responsibility too.” This was joyful news, but Ìyá Ẹniọlá could not even force herself to smile. She let her chin sink into her chest. Alàgbà was the only person she could always turn to at the last minute, certain that he would give her the last cup of gaàrí in his house. There were times when he’d assured her that he would rather starve than allow Bùsọ́lá and Ẹniọlá to go without food. And now she realised that, somewhere in her mind, she had always assumed there would never be anyone in his life whose welfare would come before hers. Who would she turn to now? How would she pay her children’s school fees? And the rent? Would he have told her about his marriage if she hadn’t asked him about the school fees? She studied his face and realised, from the way he held her gaze, as though it was normal for her to learn he was married a year after the event, that he would have kept the information to himself, safe from her. How had she let the years pass without coming to see him? Why had
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76 |
Love Theoretically.txt
| 47 |
my eyes shut. “No need to shoot if you don’t want to.” There’s a tinge of worry in her voice. A line between her eyes. “You could fire or discharge or—” “I want to. It’s just . . .” I’m not motorically able to. Which Cece might know, because she crosses her arms, tilts her head in that compassionate way of hers, and tells me, “Maybe if you say it in a funny accent, it’ll be easier? May I suggest Australian? Not to be culturally insensitive, but those closed e’s are just—” “I hated In the Mood for Love,” I blurt out. “And I find very little enjoyment in Wong Kar-wai’s filmography.” Cece startles. Physically. Spiritually. “But . . . but they are amazing.” “I know. Well—I don’t know. They look like I should find them amazing, but to me they’re just sad and kinda slow. Still better than the Russian ones from the seventies, which feel like rubbing brambles against my eyeballs, and I really think producers should stop giving money to Lars von Trier and instead pick a good charity. Even just flush it down the garbage disposal, honestly. And don’t get me started about 2001: A Space Odyssey—” She gasps like this is a theater play. “You said you loved it!” “I . . . Maybe. I mostly repeated things I found online.” She frowns at the backsplash tiles. “Your review did sound very similar to Roger Ebert’s,” she mumbles to herself. “I hate all auteur-style movies.” My mouth feels like a desert. Then it gets even drier when Cece asks me with a scowl, “What do you like, then?” I try to swallow. Fail. “Twilight’s my favorite.” Cece’s eyes bug out. She opens her mouth. Closes it. Opens it. Closes it. Opens it one last time. “Which one?” she asks, sounding constipated. “I don’t know.” I wince. “All of them. The fourth?” Is that a whimper? Maybe. Yeah. And I don’t know what I expected her reaction would be, but it was not this one. Not her glaring at me and then something hitting me hard on the forehead. And then again. And then— “Is this—” I lift my hands and take a protective step back. “Are you throwing cheddar cubes at—” “Damn right I am!” She takes a two-second break to turn off the stove and starts again. With improved aim and vigor. I back down till the counter stops me. “I knew you weren’t watching hentai porn that time! I knew I saw that shovel-face guy on the screen, I knew it, I knew it, I—” “Not the cheese, Cece!” The stoning stops. And when I peek between my fingers, Cece is there, a bag of Great Value cubed cheddar clutched in her fist, staring at me. Her eyes are brimming wet. “Why?” she asks, and my heart breaks, and I want to take it all back. It was a joke. I love Wong Kar-wai, and Kubrick is the best. I’m still the Elsie she wants, and tonight we can have a Jodorowsky marathon. It’s such
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.txt
| 29 |
rims of his spectacles and his no-coloured eyes looking through the glasses. Why did he say he knew that trick? --Lazy idle little loafer! cried the prefect of studies. Broke my glasses! An old schoolboy trick! Out with your hand this moment! Stephen closed his eyes and held out in the air his trembling hand with the palm upwards. He felt the prefect of studies touch it for a moment at the fingers to straighten it and then the swish of the sleeve of the soutane as the pandybat was lifted to strike. A hot burning stinging tingling blow like the loud crack of a broken stick made his trembling hand crumple together like a leaf in the fire: and at the sound and the pain scalding tears were driven into his eyes. His whole body was shaking with fright, his arm was shaking and his crumpled burning livid hand shook like a loose leaf in the air. A cry sprang to his lips, a prayer to be let off. But though the tears scalded his eyes and his limbs quivered with pain and fright he held back the hot tears and the cry that scalded his throat. --Other hand! shouted the prefect of studies. Stephen drew back his maimed and quivering right arm and held out his left hand. The soutane sleeve swished again as the pandybat was lifted and a loud crashing sound and a fierce maddening tingling burning pain made his hand shrink together with the palms and fingers in a livid quivering mass. The scalding water burst forth from his eyes and, burning with shame and agony and fear, he drew back his shaking arm in terror and burst out into a whine of pain. His body shook with a palsy of fright and in shame and rage he felt the scalding cry come from his throat and the scalding tears falling out of his eyes and down his flaming cheeks. --Kneel down, cried the prefect of studies. Stephen knelt down quickly pressing his beaten hands to his sides. To think of them beaten and swollen with pain all in a moment made him feel so sorry for them as if they were not his own but someone else's that he felt sorry for. And as he knelt, calming the last sobs in his throat and feeling the burning tingling pain pressed into his sides, he thought of the hands which he had held out in the air with the palms up and of the firm touch of the prefect of studies when he had steadied the shaking fingers and of the beaten swollen reddened mass of palm and fingers that shook helplessly in the air. --Get at your work, all of you, cried the prefect of studies from the door. Father Dolan will be in every day to see if any boy, any lazy idle little loafer wants flogging. Every day. Every day. The door closed behind him. The hushed class continued to copy out the themes. Father Arnall rose from his seat and went among them,
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Cold People.txt
| 33 |
with others she spoke for many minutes, before arriving at Yotam. He was so close to delirium at this point that he had no idea whether he could articulate any kind of meaningful reply. Sitting beside him, she offered a sip of warm cauliflower soup from a Thermos, the most delicious liquid he’d ever tasted. She spoke to him in English, occasionally addressing a question in Mandarin to her interpreter, asking him to tell the story of his life. Yotam had been so relieved to talk, to do anything to take his mind off the world around him, he’d babbled about his childhood, his military service, his love story with Eitan, the most intimate details spewed up in an unbroken monologue. Song didn’t say a word until the very end when she thanked him and moved onto the next refugee, giving him no indication of her purpose or whether what he’d said was of any interest. One week later she had returned to him with a proposition. Once winter was over, she would be transferring to McMurdo Station, explaining that she was a geneticist and it had already been decided that genetic adaptation was the only chance humankind had of surviving the cold. Despite the apparent anarchy, there was a plan. The newly created governing alliance of nations had been pondering the future, believing the only way to stave off extinction was to behave in ways that had once been considered morally and ethically unacceptable. ‘I need a team of assistants. People devoted to my work. You will do exactly as I say without question or dissent. You will work harder than any person has ever worked before. We’ll do things that no person has ever done before. What do you say?’ Yotam had said yes. MCMURDO CITY HISTORIC OLD TOWN THE CANTEEN NEXT DAY ENTERING THE CANTEEN FOR BREAKFAST, Yotam had no intention of leaving Copper tied up outside, figuring people wouldn’t mind the company of a handsome husky while they ate. As it happens, compared to the metropolises of old, New York, Berlin, Delhi, Tokyo, very few citizens of McMurdo City became sick with minor illnesses in part due to the monastically healthy diet but also because the levels of viruses and bacteria were dramatically lower on this freezing continent. All upper respiratory tract diseases died out within four weeks of arriving and with no new arrivals from the warm world, there were no new pathogens and no new pandemics. Today breakfast was synthetic protein porridge cultivated in the food labs, topped with grated tussock-root and fortified with ground-up vitamin pills, the supply of which was set to run out in a matter of months. Each bowl was accompanied by mugs of warm seal milk turned vivid green with powdered algae. Since the kitchen team had become concerned about his weight, it was agreed that he was too thin for life in Antarctica, Yotam was fed a penguin-egg omelette which he ate out of obligation while others eyed his plate enviously, puzzled by his lack of appreciation for this delicacy.
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Cold People.txt
| 56 |
and thirty-eight metres long, twelve metres wide, its nose was wedged on the rocky shore, having navigated to Antarctica from the port of Île Longue, Western Brittany. It had been separated from the rest of the French fleet and was now surrounded by an eclectic flotilla of fishing boats and civilian yachts. The sailors guarding the hatch of the nuclear submarine saw the attempt to disembark and after some discussion moved over to them, inflating one of their luminous orange rafts which they positioned under the base of the ladder to stop people falling into the water. By this point the group of passengers around Liza had grown to include numerous Italian scientists who’d listened to her argument about the need to be on shore. The debate was spreading through the ship and by the time the ladders were safely positioned over the orange life raft over five hundred people had gathered at the bow wanting to join the evacuation. Before climbing down, Atto assessed the freezing waters, warning Liza: ‘If we get wet, we’ll become cold, and if we’re cold, we won’t survive.’ In the life raft, the French sailors pointed out that there was no space for them inside the submarine. For the third time, as though she were a preacher repeating a religious parable, Liza explained her belief that the only way to be sure of safety was to be on the mainland. Their bodies needed to be in contact with the continent of Antarctica; they’d travelled so far, they’d sacrificed so much, it was madness not to take these final steps. If she was wrong, if the boats turned out to be safe, they could return. Atto translated into French and the sailors listened in silence. Liza added, no longer equivocating: ‘If I’m right, being inside that submarine won’t protect you.’ The orange raft arrived at the black rocky shore and, without any fanfare or deliberation, without acknowledging the significance of the moment, Lisa stepped out onto a continent she’d never dreamt of visiting, a land that until this moment held no place in her imagination – the most desolate land on Earth that was now her home. ANTARCTICA TRINITY PENINSULA SAME DAY THIRTY MINUTES REMAINING GIVEN TO HIM BY HIS father before they’d said goodbye, Atto was wearing olive green neoprene waders with insulated latex boots, deep-sea fishing gear designed for extended periods in the harshest of conditions. With no waders for either Liza or Emma, they’d improvised cold-weather clothes with a mix of layers, sports undershirts, hooded tops and oversize heavy wax rain jackets taken from the fishing boat. Their hiking boots, intended for hill-walking, were wrapped tight in plastic bags and duct tape, none of which could be easily removed. Atto had offered his neoprene clothing to Liza, but she’d refused, pointing out that they were too big and, more importantly, they were a parting gift from his father. It was unthinkable for anyone to wear them except him, although they were already noticing the envious looks his clothes were getting from the people around
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Their Eyes Were Watching God.txt
| 61 |
women see visions and the helpless way she hung on him made men dream dreams. “Tea Cake, you sho is a lucky man,” Sop-de-Bottom told him. “Uh person can see every place you hit her. Ah Their Eyes Were Watching God 173 bet she never raised her hand tuh hit yuh back, neither. Take some uh dese ol’ rusty black women and dey would fight yuh all night long and next day nobody couldn’t tell you ever hit ’em. Dat’s de reason Ah done quit beatin’ mah woman. You can’t make no mark on ’em at all. Lawd! wouldn’t Ah love tuh whip uh tender woman lak Janie! Ah bet she don’t even holler. She jus’ cries, eh Tea Cake?” “Dat’s right.” “See dat! Mah woman would spread her lungs all over Palm Beach County, let alone knock out mah jaw teeth. You don’t know dat woman uh mine. She got ninety-nine rows uh jaw teeth and git her good and mad, she’ll wade through solid rock up to her hip pockets.” “Mah Janie is uh high time woman and useter things. Ah didn’t git her outa de middle uh de road. Ah got her outa uh big fine house. Right now she got money enough in de bank tuh buy up dese ziggaboos and give ’em away.” “Hush yo’ mouf! And she down heah on de muck lak anybody else!” “Janie is wherever Ah wants tuh be. Dat’s de kind uh wife she is and Ah love her for it. Ah wouldn’t be knockin’ her around. Ah didn’t wants whup her last night, but ol’ Mis’ Turner done sent for her brother tuh come tuh bait Janie in and take her way from me. Ah didn’t whup Janie ’cause she done nothin’. Ah beat her tuh show dem Turners who is boss. Ah set in de kitchen one day and heard dat woman tell mah wife Ah’m too black fuh her. She don’t see how Janie can stand me.” “Tell her husband on her.” 174 Zora Neale Hurston “Shucks! Ah b’lieve he’s skeered of her.” “Knock her teeth down her throat.” “Dat would look like she had some influence when she ain’t. Ah jus’ let her see dat Ah got control.” “So she live offa our money and don’t lak black folks, huh? O.K. we’ll have her gone from here befo’ two weeks is up. Ah’m goin’ right off tuh all de men and drop rocks aginst her.” “Ah ain’t mad wid her for whut she done, ’cause she ain’t done me nothin’ yet. Ah’m mad at her for thinkin’. Her and her gang got tuh go.” “Us is wid yuh, Tea Cake. You know dat already. Dat Turner woman is real smart, accordin’ tuh her notions. Reckon she done heard ’bout dat money yo’ wife got in de bank and she’s bound tuh rope her in tuh her family one way or another.” “Sop, Ah don’t think it’s half de money as it is de looks. She’s color-struck. She ain’t got de kind of uh mind you meet every day.
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Cold People.txt
| 52 |
who’d built his career from modest beginnings, the son of a street food vendor, he’d made his own way to Antarctica on a friend’s shipping vessel, surviving by a combination of good fortune and ingenuity. Despite the extreme constraints of the continent in terms of food sources, Chang-Rae refused to surrender to these limitations. He often claimed he could cope with the cold, but the narrow spectrum of flavours was painful to him, like a pianist only being able to play three notes. Rather than merely making do, he spent his free time searching for anything that might be edible, from pulverized volcanic pumice to skua-claw broth, always testing it on himself for adverse reactions and occasionally falling sick in the process. He was considered a hero for his efforts. McMurdo’s Senate was aware that a dynamic and vibrant cuisine had done much to inspire people, with Chang-Rae producing extraordinary dishes that would’ve impressed the toughest of critics. If Antarctica could be said to have a cuisine, it had been largely defined by his creativity. As it happened, Yotam enjoyed the diet. For religious reasons, rules that he continued to follow despite the ungodly nature of his work, he never ate shellfish even though spider crabs were abundant, nor did he indulge in the occasional luxuries handed out from the near-depleted storerooms. The last remaining splinters of Ecuadorian dark chocolate and thimbles of ancient French wines were offered on holidays to break up the repetitious nature of their meals, precious treats used to motivate the McMurdo community struggling with the narrowness of life on the ice. His childhood, devoid of everyday pleasures, meant that the austerity was far less challenging to him than it was to many others. For whatever reason, these two men, who had almost nothing in common, were tremendously fond of each other, perhaps recognizing a shared level of professional fanaticism or merely enjoying the mysterious magic of a friendship that had no reason behind it of any obvious kind. Emerging from the kitchen, noticing the commotion in the queue, Chang-Rae asked his friend: ‘What’s with the dog?’ ‘Last night, after work, the welfare staff felt I needed an emotional companion.’ ‘Ever tried a human?’ ‘That’s funny.’ ‘I’m not joking. I don’t know why you don’t date.’ ‘I date. I’ve dated. I will in the future date.’ ‘Your heart’s never been in it. Don’t tell me you’re married to your work; I work just as hard as you. You need to find someone. Life on this continent makes more sense when you’re with someone. When you can’t see a point to anything, you hold them in your arms and suddenly you remember what you’re surviving for.’ Seeing his friend’s head drop and sadness sweep over him, Chang-Rae added: ‘Can I set you up?’ ‘Who is he?’ ‘A close friend of mine. Great guy.’ ‘Okay, sure.’ ‘Will you stand them up? Like you did last time? It’s not fair. This life is tough. No one has the strength to be stood up.’ ‘The project I’m working on is reaching the
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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.txt
| 9 |
faith in Holmes's judgment that I felt that there must be some grounds for hope as long as he was dissatisfied with the accepted explanation. He hardly spoke a word the whole way out to the southern suburb, but sat with his chin upon his breast and his hat drawn over his eyes, sunk in the deepest thought. Our client appeared to have taken fresh heart at the little glimpse of hope which had been presented to him, and he even broke into a desultory chat with me over his business affairs. A short railway journey and a shorter walk brought us to Fairbank, the modest residence of the great financier. Fairbank was a good-sized square house of white stone, standing back a little from the road. A double carriage-sweep, with a snow-clad lawn, stretched down in front to two large iron gates which closed the entrance. On the right side was a small wooden thicket, which led into a narrow path between two neat hedges stretching from the road to the kitchen door, and forming the tradesmen's entrance. On the left ran a lane which led to the stables, and was not itself within the grounds at all, being a public, though little used, thoroughfare. Holmes left us standing at the door and walked slowly all round the house, across the front, down the tradesmen's path, and so round by the garden behind into the stable lane. So long was he that Mr. Holder and I went into the dining-room and waited by the fire until he should return. We were sitting there in silence when the door opened and a young lady came in. She was rather above the middle height, slim, with dark hair and eyes, which seemed the darker against the absolute pallor of her skin. I do not think that I have ever seen such deadly paleness in a woman's face. Her lips, too, were bloodless, but her eyes were flushed with crying. As she swept silently into the room she impressed me with a greater sense of grief than the banker had done in the morning, and it was the more striking in her as she was evidently a woman of strong character, with immense capacity for self-restraint. Disregarding my presence, she went straight to her uncle and passed her hand over his head with a sweet womanly caress. "You have given orders that Arthur should be liberated, have you not, dad?" she asked. "No, no, my girl, the matter must be probed to the bottom." "But I am so sure that he is innocent. You know what woman's instincts are. I know that he has done no harm and that you will be sorry for having acted so harshly." "Why is he silent, then, if he is innocent?" "Who knows? Perhaps because he was so angry that you should suspect him." "How could I help suspecting him, when I actually saw him with the coronet in his hand?" "Oh, but he had only picked it up to look at it. Oh, do, do take my
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Casino Royale.txt
| 61 |
million two at roulette. He was playing the maximum on the first and last dozens. He was lucky. Then the Englishman, Mister Bond, increased his winnings to exactly three million over the two days. He was playing a progressive system on red at table five. Duclos, the chef de partie, has the details. It seems that he is persevering and plays in maximums. He has luck. His nerves seem good. On the soire, the chemin-de-fer won x, the baccarat won y and the roulette won z. The boule, which was again badly frequented, still makes its expenses.' 'Merci, Monsieur Xavier.' 'Merci, Monsieur le President.' Or something like that, thought Bond as he pushed his way through the swing doors of the salle prive and nodded to the bored man in evening clothes whose job it is to bar your entry and your exit with the electric foot-switch which can lock the doors at any hint of trouble. And the casino committee would balance its books and break up to its homes or cafs for lunch. As for robbing the caisse, in which Bond himself was not personally concerned, but only interested, he reflected that it would take ten good men, that they would certainly have to kill one or two employees, and that anyway you probably couldn't find ten non-squeal killers in France, or in any other country for the matter of that. As he gave a thousand francs to the vestiaire and walked down the steps of the casino, Bond made up his mind that Le Chiffre would in no circumstances try to rob the caisse and he put the contingency out of his mind. Instead he explored his present physical sensations. He felt the dry, uncomfortable gravel under his evening shoes, the bad, harsh taste in his mouth and the slight sweat under his arms. He could feel his eyes filling their sockets. The front of his face, his nose and antrum, were congested. He breathed the sweet night air deeply and focused his senses and his wits. He wanted to know if anyone had searched his room since he had left it before dinner. He walked across the broad boulevard and through the gardens to the Htel Splendide. He smiled at the concierge who gave him his key - No 45 on the first floor - and took the cable. It was from Jamaica and read: KINGSTONJA XXXX XXXXXX XXXX XXX BOND SPLENDIDE ROYALE-LES-EAUX SEINE INFERIEURE HAVANA CIGAR PRODUCTION ALL CUBAN FACTORIES 1915 TEN MILLION REPEAT TEN MILLION STOP HOPE THIS FIGURE YOU REQUIRE REGARDS.DASILVA This meant that ten million francs was on the way to him. It was the reply to a request Bond had sent that afternoon through Paris to his headquarters in London asking for more funds. Paris had spoken to London where Clements, the head of Bond's department, had spoken to M, who had smiled wryly and told 'The Broker' to fix it with the Treasury. Bond had once worked in Jamaica and his cover on the Royale assignment was that of a very rich
| 1 |
58 |
Confidence_-a-Novel.txt
| 22 |
that they’d stained their teeth with Vacio. “I suppose you could say that,” Orson would reply. “How can I be of help?” they wanted to know. “In thirty years when you’re a famous senator or a rich CEO, I want to be able to say ‘I knew him when.’ ” “Oh, well, your kindness is help enough.” They would open their purses and start counting off hundreds: three, four, five, six. “Just a little something to get you started.” “Mrs. X, I couldn’t possibly accept that.” They’d stuff the bills into his hand. “Let’s just say it’s for the wine, then.” Orson would offer them a rueful look, fold the bills, and wedge them in his pocket. “This is really generous of you,” he’d say. “Oh, it’s nothing,” they’d say. “When you’ve become successful, this will be chump change to you.” Emboldened by their tipsiness, the women would open their arms for a hug, which Orson would reciprocate, hugging them for as long as they wanted (typically a few seconds too long), and then allowing them to hold him at arm’s length and look him in the eyes. “You really are something special, Mr. Ortman,” they’d say, their own eyes wine glazed. “If you need any favors in this life—I mean anything whatsoever—you just call me up.” Sometimes they gave him a printed business card, sometimes they put their contact information in his phone, and sometimes (the best times), they gave him another hundred or two. On an average wine night, we came away with anywhere between $500 and $900. There were, of course, the marks who couldn’t be manipulated. There was a woman in her late fifties, a self-proclaimed oenophile who tasted the wine, wrinkled her nose, and asked if it was a “cheaper vintage recorked.” The conversation after that had been stilted, awkward, and Orson had left her room without a tip. Then there were the women who wanted everything but wouldn’t give up the money. A younger one with platinum blond hair, late thirties or early forties, flat out asked Orson to join her in bed for a grand total of $50. Another one tweaked his nipple and pretended that it had never happened, then got flustered when he got flustered and ordered him out of the room. Another one told him that she wanted to see him again every night for a month, and after that she told him she was in love with him and asked him to join her in escaping her possessive husband. On the night he was supposed to meet her on the front steps of the Boyd, ready to start a new life, he didn’t show. She and her husband checked out early the next day and never came back. Of the frequent flyers, the wealthiest were Carol and Dmitri Argyros. Dmitri was the CEO of Argyros Oil, a company whose net worth exceeded $64 billion. He’d made a name for himself as a young businessman in Greece, where he’d been an enthusiastic proponent of deregulation and energy derivatives. In America, he paid
| 0 |
85 |
Talia-Hibbert-Highly-Suspicious.txt
| 48 |
you the bad guy.” Aaaand my stomach is on the floor again. “That’s not true.” “You told me not to—” “I apologized,” I interrupt, because I know what I said, and I don’t want to hear it again. “I told you I was sorry. I told you straight away.” “As if I was going to believe a word out of your mouth after that.” I know what that was. I can see it now: me dragging Celine over to the lunch table with all my new friends. The more she talked, the quieter they got, and the quieter they got, the more she talked. Nervous. A bit too loud. Repeating herself. About aliens, obviously—and how smartphones listen to everything you say and target political advertisements accordingly, advertisements designed to radicalize you into proudly destructive apathy or conservative extremism, and a load of other stuff pretty much no other fourteen-year-old was going to appreciate, and I wanted this to work, I wanted everything to work, so I told her after lunch that maybe the next day she should just— Keep that stuff to herself. And she said, “But why?” And I didn’t want to say, “Because I need them to like you,” so instead I said, “Come on, Cel. It’s just…a bit…weird.” I knew as soon as I said it that I’d made a mistake. Sorry, sorry, sorry— Too late. “I am weird, Bradley, and I don’t care. Sorry I’m not pathetic enough to fake my entire personality. Some of us actually have integrity.” You know how things hurt the most when you’re scared they might be true? “I have integrity!” “Sure you do.” “Well, sorry people like me but not you, Celine.” “One day they’ll all find out how weird you really are, Brad. You know that, right?” Yeah. I knew. Just like I knew this whole fight was a mistake. “Will your new friends want you then?” she’d snarled. “Of course they will!” Except it stung because maybe they wouldn’t. Things went downhill after that. And by downhill, I mean Celine called me a knock-off Ken doll with an inferiority complex, so I told her aliens weren’t real and her dad was just a dick. Jesus. Five minutes ago, we were wandering through the woods and suddenly, somehow, she’s plunged me into a vat of the past and I feel like I’m drowning. I knew I should’ve stayed away from this girl. Around her, I am nothing but trouble. “You realized you could fit in,” Celine says now, “and you were gone. Like that.” Her fingers don’t snap properly; they’re too wet. “All you had to do was leave me behind, so you did it. It’s not a big deal. I just wish you’d admit it.” “You’re wrong.” I don’t like to think about this stuff—it’s twisted and messy and I don’t do mess—but the truth is, back then, I had a very clear plan: football, and friends, and still-Celine. Always-Celine. It’s just, the closer I got to those first two things, the more she turned away from me. And I
| 0 |
5 |
Anne of Green Gables.txt
| 92 |
and Anne was wondering dreamily if the spirit of color looked like that, when she saw Diana come flying down through the firs, over the log bridge, and up the slope, with a fluttering newspaper in her hand. Anne sprang to her feet, knowing at once what that paper contained. The pass list was out! Her head whirled and her heart beat until it hurt her. She could not move a step. It seemed an hour to her before Diana came rushing along the hall and burst into the room without even knocking, so great was her excitement. "Anne, you've passed," she cried, "passed the VERY FIRST-you and Gilbert both-you're ties-but your name is first. Oh, I'm so proud!" Diana flung the paper on the table and herself on Anne's bed, utterly breathless and incapable of further speech. Anne lighted the lamp, oversetting the match safe and using up half a dozen matches before her shaking hands could accomplish the task. Then she snatched up the paper. Yes, she had passed-there was her name at the very top of a list of two hundred! That moment was worth living for. "You did just splendidly, Anne," puffed Diana, recovering sufficiently to sit up and speak, for Anne, starry eyed and rapt, had not uttered a word. "Father brought the paper home from Bright River not ten minutes ago-it came out on the afternoon train, you know, and won't be here till tomorrow by mail-and when I saw the pass list I just rushed over like a wild thing. You've all passed, every one of you, Moody Spurgeon and all, although he's conditioned in history. Jane and Ruby did pretty well-they're halfway up-and so did Charlie. Josie just scraped through with three marks to spare, but you'll see she'll put on as many airs as if she'd led. Won't Miss Stacy be delighted? Oh, Anne, what does it feel like to see your name at the head of a pass list like that? If it were me I know I'd go crazy with joy. I am pretty near crazy as it is, but you're as calm and cool as a spring evening." "I'm just dazzled inside," said Anne. "I want to say a hundred things, and I can't find words to say them in. I never dreamed of this-yes, I did too, just once! I let myself think ONCE, `What if I should come out first?' quakingly, you know, for it seemed so vain and presumptuous to think I could lead the Island. Excuse me a minute, Diana. I must run right out to the field to tell Matthew. Then we'll go up the road and tell the good news to the others." They hurried to the hayfield below the barn where Matthew was coiling hay, and, as luck would have it, Mrs. Lynde was talking to Marilla at the lane fence. "Oh, Matthew," exclaimed Anne, "I've passed and I'm first-or one of the first! I'm not vain, but I'm thankful." "Well now, I always said it," said Matthew, gazing at the pass list
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74 |
Kristy-Woodson-Harvey-The-Summer-of-Songbirds.txt
| 40 |
But, I reason, Huff and I haven’t had a chance to decide where we are in our relationship, so it certainly isn’t the time to bring my friends into the mix. And between our work schedules—and the fact that I’ve put every spare minute into saving camp—we’ve barely seen each other for more than a brief snippet of time. But today is going to change all that. Today, I’m opening my great-aunt Gracie’s house for the first time in… Well, it has to have been years since I’ve darkened the door of this old beachfront cottage, which is ridiculous since it is less than two miles from my house. Great-Aunt Gracie had no children and left the property to both June and me when she died. We decided to keep it because we thought it would only increase in value. And, today, it’s a neutral spot where Huff and I can meet. There’s almost zero chance Lanier will drive by, see our cars, and put two and two together before we’re ready to tell her we’ve started seeing each other again. What happened between Huff and me at the wedding was one thing. That was the culmination of memories and nostalgia, passion and intensity, and it was definitely unplanned. But this, today, isn’t a random happenstance in a bathroom that was not ours for the taking. This is a plan. We will meet here at 10 a.m. and part ways at five. TGIF indeed. I am surprised by how clean the house is when I walk through the door. The caretaker didn’t quit coming when she realized June and I never did. Even still, I unload the vacuum cleaner and Swiffer duster and Seventh Generation sprays. I unpack the sparkling water and the PBR that Huff drank when we were younger. I don’t know what he drinks now, but the thought of him sitting on this porch with me, a PBR in his hand, is the single sexiest thing I can conceive of. I run the vacuum over the mattress in the tiny bedroom and fight with the fitted floral sheet that, worn soft and thin with time, has been here since Great-Aunt Gracie. The scent of Tide fills the air, and I have the most vivid memory of sitting here, squealing with delight as my mother snapped this very same sheet over this very same bed, the floral fabric billowing down around me and blanketing me from the world. Maybe it’s the memory of my mother, maybe it’s the house, but I find this bed so comforting that I want to curl up and take a nap. But I am too keyed up to sleep. By the time I am finished vacuuming, dusting, mopping, and wiping every square inch, I feel a sense of accomplishment, even though it hasn’t done much to soothe my nerves. I have been so busy with save-Camp-Holly-Springs items this week that in between work and Henry I haven’t had much time to obsess over this meetup. So, as ten o’clock approaches, I start to worry about
| 0 |
97 |
What-Dreams-May-Come.txt
| 81 |
you are coming with me.” He looked up, his thick eyebrows low but his hazel eyes sparkling with interest. “That sounded very much like an order, Lucy.” “Perhaps it was.” “I am not accustomed to taking orders.” “And I am not accustomed to giving orders to anyone older than fifteen, yet here we are.” To her surprise, Simon stood and slid his hand into hers. For a moment, she couldn’t concentrate on anything but their fingers pressed together, but then he said, “And where are we going?” She shook off the strange feeling in her stomach and grinned at the man who looked far too nervous for someone who held so much power. All she held was his hand. “Somewhere without papers to scowl at. Come.” Only when they were outside did she realize how intimate the gesture of holding his hand really was. Locked together as they were, her skirts brushed his boots and she could smell the soap he used. Hardly appropriate, even if she had been his sister-in-law or close to it. She attempted to release him—he could hardly want that prolonged contact—but he held fast to her fingers and watched her with an intense look as they walked, as if he were desperate for whatever reprieve she could give him. How long had he been staring at those pages? It didn’t take him long before he realized where she was leading him, and he picked up the pace, practically pulling her along with him in his hurry to get to the place she was starting to suspect was his only sanctuary. Simon’s pond was just as it had been when he brought Lucy there the other day, only the sun hid behind a layer of gray clouds and left the place feeling somewhat melancholy—tainted by the weight he carried on his shoulders. When they reached the nearest shore, he plopped himself down in the grass, pulling Lucy with him, and didn’t even seem to notice how close together they sat. Neither did he seem to realize he still held on to her hand, something she was keenly aware of because her hand fit so well inside his. Lucy hadn’t intended to sit beside a smooth-surfaced pond, shoulder to shoulder with a baron who held her hand without reservation, but she had no inclination to change her situation. After several minutes, Simon finally let out a small sigh, his shoulders dropping with his breath. “I used to come here all the time as a boy,” he said, almost reverently. “Will always thought I was boring because I would just sit here. For hours. He never understood how much I needed to sort through my thoughts without distractions. How much I needed some peace.” “I can imagine your life has little peace in it,” Lucy replied. And here she was, threatening to destroy what little he had. He turned to meet her gaze, and both of them froze. Lucy didn’t know why he’d became so still, but she realized how close their faces were to one another, and the experience
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73 |
Kika-Hatzopoulou-Threads-That-Bi.txt
| 42 |
in the Silts, making sure something like that never happened again.” Io looked at her palms. “The big boss was Bianca.” “Yes.” Io knew the stories. In the years since Bianca Rossi took over the Silts, the district was, if not lawful, at least more principled. The mob queen had established some semblance of order: she kept the outlier gangs from tolling the bridges, hunted every harasser out of the Silts, showed shop owners what happened when they paid immigrants half the wage they deserved. She made the Silts a little safer—but what was the point, when the biggest danger was Bianca herself? “Edei realized early on that this line of work wasn’t for him. He’s tried to reform the Fortuna as best he can, but some things are beyond his control. Still, he stays with her, because she has the means to endorse his entry permit and, by extension, mine. He has sacrificed a lot to keep us safe in Alante.” Samiya’s face was lined with quiet fury. This, Io remembered, was the healer who had continued to help women with unwanted pregnancies even after her life was threatened. Who mended her boyfriend’s bones after every fight. It was no wonder she and Edei were a good pair: tough and fearless. “It’s bad for you native other-born, but it’s worse for us.” Even when they filled the criteria and gathered the necessary fees, immigrant other-born were often turned away at the gates, left to fend for themselves in the Wastelands against the tide and the neo-monsoons. A resident’s endorsement went a long way in a city as corrupt as Alante. It was more than enough reason for Edei to stay in Bianca’s employ, or for Samiya to seek Saint-Yves’s and the Initiative’s help. “What I’m trying to say,” the girl concluded, “is that Bianca Rossi, however cruel, however cunning, has the loyalty of the Silts. Edei’s loyalty, even mine. She is the only one who offers us the power to fight for justice in an unjust world. But, from what I understand, Edei has found another, kinder way to fight back—in your investigation, in you. Just be gentle with him. It’s neither easy nor fast, reexamining your loyalties.” “I know.” And she did. She knew all about how hard it could be to reexamine your loyalties. To take the people you loved apart and decide if what was left was worth loving. Even now, two years later, she couldn’t decide what she felt for Thais, her own sister, the woman who raised her. She was happy—she was humbled—that she was the reason Edei was rethinking his loyalties, that he thought of her as a kinder way to fight back. But the truth was she couldn’t wait for him. She had already revealed too much. Now she had to race against the clock to get what she wanted out of Bianca. “A couple of times now,” Io said, “I have noticed Bianca’s lips are tinted blue. Do you happen to know anything about that?” Samiya frowned. “It sounds like a sleeping tonic.”
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23 |
Moby Dick; Or, The Whale.txt
| 54 |
without this other arm? And I'm thinking Moby Dick doesn't bite so much as he swallows. Well, then, interrupted Bunger, give him your left arm for bait to get the right. Do you know, gentlemen --very gravely and mathematically bowing to each Captain in succession -- Do you know, gentlemen, that the digestive organs of the whale are so inscrutably constructed by Divine Providence, that it is quite impossible for him to completely digest even a .. <p 439 > man's arm? And he knows it too. So that what you take for the White Whale's malice is only his awkwardness. For he never means to swallow a single limb; he only thinks to terrify by feints. But sometimes he is like the old juggling fellow, formerly a patient of mine in Ceylon, that making believe swallow jack-knives, once upon a time let one drop into him in good earnest, and there it stayed for a twelvemonth or more; when I gave him an emetic, and he heaved it up in small tacks, d'ye see. No possible way for him to digest that jack-knife, and fully incorporate it into his general bodily system. Yes, Captain Boomer, if you are quick enough about it, and have a mind to pawn one arm for the sake of the privilege of giving decent burial to the other, why in that case the arm is yours; only let the whale have another chance at you shortly, that's all. No, thank ye, Bunger, said the english captain, he's welcome to the arm he has, since I can't help it, and didn't know him then; but not to another one. No more White Whales for me; I've lowered for him once, and that has satisfied me. There would be great glory in killing him, I know that; and there is a ship-load of precious sperm in him, but, hark ye, he's best let alone; don't you think so, Captain? --glancing at the ivory leg. He is. But he will still be hunted, for all that. What is best let alone, that accursed thing is not always what least allures. He's all a magnet! How long since thou saw'st him last? Which way heading? Bless my soul, and curse the foul fiend's, cried Bunger, stoopingly walking round Ahab, and like a dog, strangely snuffing; this man's blood --bring the thermometer; --it's at the boiling point! --his pulse makes these planks beat! --sir! --taking a lancet from his pocket, and drawing near to Ahab's arm. Avast! roared Ahab, dashing him against the bulwarks -- Man the boat! Which way heading? Good God! cried the English Captain, to whom the question was put. What's the matter? He was heading east, I think. --Is your Captain crazy? whispering Fedallah. But Fedallah, putting a finger on his lip, slid over the bulwarks .. <p 440 > to take the boat's steering oar, and Ahab, swinging the cutting-tackle towards him, commanded the ship's sailors to stand by to lower. In a moment he was standing in the boat's stern, and the Manilla men were
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21 |
Little Women.txt
| 31 |
said Amy, much impressed by the note. "Try it, honey. Let's hear the sound of the baby pianny," said Hannah, who always took a share in the family joys and sorrows. So Beth tried it, and everyone pronounced it the most remarkable piano ever heard. It had evidently been newly tuned and put in applepie order, but, perfect as it was, I think the real charm lay in the happiest of all happy faces which leaned over it, as Beth lovingly touched the beautiful black and white keys and pressed the bright pedals. "You'll have to go and thank him," said Jo, by way of a joke, for the idea of the child's really going never entered her head. "Yes, I mean to. I guess I'll go no, before I get frightened thinking about it." And, to the utter amazement of the assembled family, Beth walked deliberately down the garden, through the hedge, and in at the Laurences' door. "Well, I wish I may die if it ain't the queerest thing I ever see! The pianny has turned her head! She'd never have gone in her right mind," cried Hannah, staring after her, while the girls were rendered quite speechless by the miracle. They would have been still more amazed if they had seen what Beth did afterward. If you will believe me, she went and knocked at the study door before she gave herself time to think, and when a gruff voice called out, "come in!" she did go in, right up to Mr. Laurence, who looked quite taken aback, and held out her hand, saying, with only a small quaver in her voice, "I came to thank you, sir, for. . ." But she didn't finish, for he looked so friendly that she forgot her speech and, only remembering that he had lost the little girl he loved, she put both arms round his neck and kissed him. If the roof of the house had suddenly flown off, the old gentleman wouldn't have been more astonished. But he liked it. Oh, dear, yes, he liked it amazingly! And was so touched and pleased by that confiding little kiss that all his crustiness vanished, and he just set her on his knee, and laid his wrinkled cheek against her rosy one, feeling as if he had got his own little grand daughter back again. Beth ceased to fear him from that moment, and sat there talking to him as cozily as if she had known him all her life, for love casts out fear, and gratitude can conquer pride. When she went home, he walked with her to her own gate, shook hands cordially, and touched his hat as he marched back again, looking very stately and erect, like a handsome, soldierly old gentleman, as he was. When the girls saw that performance, Jo began to dance a jig, by way of expressing her satisfaction, Amy nearly fell out of the window in her surprise, and Meg exclaimed, with up-lifted hands, "Well, I do believe the world is coming to an
| 1 |
27 |
Silas Marner.txt
| 36 |
questions differently. Dunstan Cass trusts his native good luck, while Godfrey nervously waits to see if his luck will be good or bad. Neither believes in a system of just rewards and punishment, until years later when Godfrey accepts his childlessness as a divine punishment. Dolly Winthrop trusts blindly to the wisdom of "Them" above, but she does believe that good deeds on Earth are fairly rewarded. Silas, however, used to believe in just rewards in his Lantern-Yard days, and his faith was cruelly disappointed. He seems to be the victim of a blind destiny--even Eppie comes to him like a blessing out of nowhere. As you follow this theme through the book, notice its relation to religion (see Theme 2). Consider not only what characters say, but also how their lives eventually work out in the plot. 2. RELIGION Under the name of Christianity, many different faiths exist in Silas Marner. Eliot did not believe in a divine being herself, yet most of her public probably did. How does she present organized religion in this book? On the one hand there is Silas with his joyless, strict Lantern-Yard faith. On the other hand is Dolly with her buoyant, almost pagan Raveloe beliefs. Nancy Lammeter's clear-cut beliefs show how established doctrine can sometimes become too rigid. At times, Eliot implies that religion is no better than superstition. At other times, she sympathetically describes how church rituals comfort the faithful. Religion binds a community like Raveloe together--even Silas feels lost when he breaks with his sect. Yet many readers feel he seems stronger for having lost his faith. He never really regains a belief in God, even after he joins the church in Raveloe. His "redemption" is a product of human, rather than heavenly, love. What does George Eliot seem to propose as the guiding force of the universe? 3. HUMAN AFFECTIONS What kinds of human ties are important in this novel? There are family ties--weak at the Casses' house but strong for the Lammeters. The bonds of parent and child are especially important, whether they are biological (as with Dolly and Aaron Winthrop) or adoptive (as with Eppie and Silas). When Eppie has to choose between her biological father, Godfrey, and her adoptive father, Silas, what factors count most with her? Wholesome human affections can restore a damaged personality like Silas'. Yet stunted affections, like those at Squire Cass' house, can damage a basically good person like Godfrey. Look at the way larger communities are bound together, too: Lantern-Yard, the city Silas came from, Raveloe as a whole, or the upperclass society of Raveloe. 4. CHANGE In Eliot's view, all change is the product of a multitude of tiny factors. The process is so complex that mere humans cannot presume to control it. To examine this theory, Eliot chose for her main setting a community with ingrained old beliefs, a place where change comes slowly. She shows how gradually the collective "mind" of village opinion shifts until it accepts Silas. Many individual characters, too, have fixed habits of thought that are hard
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56 |
Christina Lauren - The True Love Experiment.txt
| 5 |
the person I had big heart and pants feelings for was a cheater. But then my blood cooled and the other things he said echoed a little louder: That it was the worst thing he’s ever done. That he’s done a lot of work on himself, gone to therapy. That Nat has forgiven him. But even if I could view his past with some perspective, my fight-or-flight moment left me feeling unsteady, remorseful, and anxious. How are the heroines in my books so sure of themselves and the person they fall in love with? How does anyone really know what and who they want? It’s all such a risk. Who chooses to fling their heart out into the blackness of uncertainty, blindly hoping someone catches it? “The thing is,” I say into her shoulder, “I signed a contract saying I wouldn’t date during this show. They’re paying me a lot of money to do this. And this isn’t just a little lie. I could be in breach of contract if I’m caught with him. Like, actual Big Legal Trouble. He could lose his job. I haven’t finished a book in more than a year, I’m avoiding my agent’s phone calls like I’m hiding from the mob, and I’m starting to feel like I can’t even do dating right. But last night in the hotel room, I didn’t care about any of that because I just wanted to be with him.” She hums, listening. “I’ve never felt that—that insatiable thing, you know? I want to be near him every second. If I eat something delicious, I want him there to take a bite. If I see something beautiful, I want to turn to him and point it out. If I hear something hilarious, I immediately want to call him and tell him everything.” “Oh, honey.” “But if it got out or I couldn’t fake it well enough, it would mess up his life, and mine.” I swallow as the hardest one bubbles to the surface. “I know that and still none of it mattered.” “We do crazy things when we fall for someone, Fizz.” “Yeah, but you know the only thing that scared me enough to get me to leave that room?” “What?” “That even if by some miracle everything goes right, I could still get hurt.” She sighs into my hair. “And if Connor hurt me, I don’t know whether I’d be able to write another love story.” I wait for the joke. One of us needs to make it; the moment is too heavy. I guess you weren’t kidding about his magical dong. It’s right there for the taking. But Jess says the last thing I expect: “That’s how you know he’s the one, Fizz.” * * * I fall asleep and Jess must have carefully extracted herself because it isn’t her moving out from under my head that wakes me, it’s me falling off the couch and landing in a pile on the floor. I don’t immediately move because I want to hold on to the dream I was having,
| 0 |
71 |
Kate-Alice-Marshall-What-Lies-in-the-Woods.txt
| 14 |
sure that it all got collected up in a trust, ensuring it went to my care and medical bills rather than Dad’s twin habits of drinking and collecting broken junk. We were smiling. Someone must have told us to, because I couldn’t imagine us doing it spontaneously. Cassidy had the bright, practiced smile of the mayor’s daughter, used to being photographed. Liv’s smile was barely a tug at the corners of her mouth, her hands knotted together and her feet crossed at the ankle. She always had a vague look in the photos around that time. In the weeks after the attack she’d gone into her first major spiral, but they were still scrambling for a diagnosis and the meds weren’t right yet, leaving her disconnected from herself. And of course my smile was pitiable. My cheek was still bandaged up—presumably not from the original wound, but from one of the surgeries to attempt a repair to the damaged nerves and muscles, which had been at best semisuccessful. The downward pull of one side of my face had only served to make me seem more sympathetic. So did the wheelchair, which it would take me a few more months to go without consistently, mostly due to pain and sheer exhaustion. Sometimes when I couldn’t sleep I still counted them. Seventeen scars. Seventeen times the knife had plunged into me and slid back out again. I still could not understand how I had survived. People had told me over the years that I’d been blessed, brave, determined, fierce. I hadn’t felt like any of those things. Survival had never even crossed my mind as a possibility or a concept. I’d crawled across the forest floor because in my blood loss–addled brain, I was trying to get away from the pain, like I could leave it behind if I got far enough. One of the stab wounds had nicked the side of my heart, not quite puncturing the atrial wall. If it had been a millimeter deeper or farther to the right, I would have escaped the pain after all. The door opened. Mitch crept in with a hangdog shuffle. “I’m sorry,” he said, sinking down cross-legged beside me on the carpet. “You’re right. I’m an asshole. Completely useless. Can you forgive me?” “Okay,” I said, and then I flashed him a quick smile. If I sounded half-hearted, he’d keep up the Please forgive me groveling as long as it took. “You’re not useless, and you’re not an asshole.” “Yes, I am. I’m a horrible boyfriend.” He leaned his head against my shoulder. I sagged. I didn’t have the energy to make him feel better right now, but if I didn’t he would keep this up all night, berating himself for his supposed failures. “It’s okay,” I soothed. “You’re so stressed out, and I shouldn’t have snapped at you.” “I’m sorry,” he said again. His fingertips trailed down my arm and played across my palm, and I shut my eyes. What was wrong with me? Mitch loved me. He wanted the best for me.
| 0 |
80 |
Rachel-Lynn-Solomon-Business-or-Pleasure.txt
| 71 |
Even in the midst of a conversation about things I don’t want to hear, I’m falling for him. Over and over and over. I just wish it could erase all my uncertainties. “What did you really think was going to happen when the book was done?” I ask. “Be honest with me.” A deep breath, a rake of his hands through his hair. “Hopefully my whole life won’t be the con circuit at that point, but yes, there will be some traveling. It’s unavoidable, especially when promo starts for the book and the nonprofit is launched. But I don’t know why we can’t try a long-distance relationship,” he says, sounding more hopeful. “It’s not that far. We’d see each other all the time.” “Those flights would get expensive.” He frowns, as though this would never have occurred to him. “I could pay for them.” Before I can protest, he adds, “Or I’ll move to Seattle and commute down to LA. Because I’d do it, if that’s what you want. Or you could move in with me here.” “I—hold on a second.” My head is spinning, and I have to sit back down, dropping onto his couch with a soft thud. Moving to Seattle. Moving in with him in LA. It’s all too much, too fast. I’ve only ever lived in Seattle, and the thought of suddenly uprooting my entire life is terrifying. Two nights ago, he said he wanted to be with me—whatever that looked like. Why is that image suddenly so unrealistic? “I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” I say honestly. “Moving in together.” “Just throwing out ideas.” He lifts his eyebrows at the couch, as though asking my permission for him to join me. When I give him a nod, he sits down, cupping my shoulder with his palm. “I haven’t been this close to anyone in a while. So I don’t know if I’m doing any of this right, but I care about you so much. Can’t you trust me that we’ll figure it out?” “I want to. I do.” “Then why does it sound like this is something you’re trying to talk yourself into?” “Because it’s fucking hard, okay?” Tears sting the corners of my eyes, unbidden, and I swipe them away as quickly as I can. I didn’t expect the conversation to spiral like this, but I also hadn’t realized just how many unanswered questions exist between us. “I don’t know how to take two huge gambles at once. My career, whatever it turns out to be, and this relationship—” “You think our relationship is a gamble?” “I just—I’m still trying to figure out who I am.” I’m reaching into the most vulnerable space now, letting him see what I sometimes refuse to show myself. “And you’ve had it figured out for so long.” “What other people think of me, maybe. But not who I really am.” As his face softens, he cracks a smile. “In fact, I think we wrote a whole book about that.” I don’t laugh. “That’s the whole point.” Because he
| 0 |
37 |
The Hunger Games.txt
| 14 |
they were easy targets for the Capitol’s air forces. Peeta Mellark and I stand in silence as the train speeds along. The tunnel goes on and on and I think of the tons of rock separating me from the sky, and my chest tightens. I hate being encased in stone this way. It reminds me of the mines and my father, trapped, unable to reach sunlight, buried for- ever in the darkness. The train finally begins to slow and suddenly bright light floods the compartment. We can’t help it. Both Peeta and I run to the window to see what we’ve only seen on television, the Capitol, the ruling city of Panem. The cameras haven’t lied about its grandeur. If anything, they have not quite captured the magnificence of the glistening buildings in a rainbow of hues that tower into the air, the shiny cars that roll down the wide paved streets, the oddly dressed people with bizarre hair and painted faces who have never missed a meal. All the col- ors seem artificial, the pinks too deep, the greens too bright, the yellows painful to the eyes, like the flat round disks of hard candy we can never afford to buy at the tiny sweet shop in District 12. The people begin to point at us eagerly as they recognize a tribute train rolling into the city. I step away from the win- 59 dow, sickened by their excitement, knowing they can’t wait to watch us die. But Peeta holds his ground, actually waving and smiling at the gawking crowd. He only stops when the train pulls into the station, blocking us from their view. He sees me staring at him and shrugs. “Who knows?” he says. “One of them may be rich.” I have misjudged him. I think of his actions since the reap- ing began. The friendly squeeze of my hand. His father show- ing up with the cookies and promising to feed Prim . . . did Peeta put him up to that? His tears at the station. Volunteering to wash Haymitch but then challenging him this morning when apparently the nice-guy approach had failed. And now the waving at the window, already trying to win the crowd. All of the pieces are still fitting together, but I sense he has a plan forming. He hasn’t accepted his death. He is already fighting hard to stay alive. Which also means that kind Peeta Mellark, the boy who gave me the bread, is fighting hard to kill me. 60 R-i-i-i-p! I grit my teeth as Venia, a woman with aqua hair and gold tattoos above her eyebrows, yanks a strip of Fabric from my leg tearing out the hair beneath it. “Sorry!” she pipes in her silly Capitol accent. “You’re just so hairy!” Why do these people speak in such a high pitch? Why do their jaws barely open when they talk? Why do the ends of their sentences go up as if they’re asking a question? Odd vo- wels, clipped words, and always a hiss on the letter
| 1 |
26 |
Pride And Prejudice.txt
| 61 |
returning. -- The part which I acted is now to be explained. -- His sisters' uneasiness had been equally excited with my own; our coincidence of feeling was soon discovered; and, alike sensible that no time was to be lost in detaching their brother, we shortly resolved on joining him directly in London. -- We accordingly went -- and there I readily engaged in the office of pointing out to my friend, the certain evils of such a choice. -- I described, and enforced them earnestly. -- But, however this remonstrance might have staggered or delayed his determination, I do not suppose that it would ultimately have prevented the marriage, had it not been seconded by the assurance, which I hesitated not in giving, of your sister's indifference. He had before believed her to return his affection with sincere, if not with equal, regard. -- But Bingley has great natural modesty, with a stronger dependence on my judgment than on his own. -- To convince him, therefore, that he had deceived himself, was no very difficult point. To persuade him against returning into Hertfordshire, when that conviction had been given, was scarcely the work of a moment. -- I cannot blame myself for having done thus much. There is but one part of my conduct in the whole affair, on which I do not reflect with satisfaction; it is that I condescended to adopt the measures of art so far as to conceal from him your sister's being in town. I knew it myself, as it was known to Miss Bingley, but her brother is even yet ignorant of it. -- That they might have met without ill consequence is, perhaps, probable; -- but his regard did not appear to me enough extinguished for him to see her without some danger. -- Perhaps this concealment, this disguise, was beneath me. -- It is done, however, and it was done for the best. -- On this subject I have nothing more to say, no other apology to offer. If I have wounded your sister's feelings, it was unknowingly done; and though the motives which governed me may to you very naturally appear insufficient, I have not yet learnt to condemn them. -- With respect to that other, more weighty accusation, of having injured Mr. Wickham, I can only refute it by laying before you the whole of his connection with my family. Of what he has _particularly_ accused me, I am ignorant; but of the truth of what I shall relate, I can summon more than one witness of undoubted veracity. Mr. Wickham is the son of a very respectable man, who had for many years the management of all the Pemberley estates; and whose good conduct in the discharge of his trust naturally inclined my father to be of service to him; and on George Wickham, who was his god-son, his kindness was therefore liberally bestowed. My father supported him at school, and afterwards at Cambridge; -- most important assistance, as his own father, always poor from the extravagance of his wife,
| 1 |
78 |
Pineapple Street.txt
| 84 |
in her life—her father, then each of her five husbands. In one sense, it was fitting, since her life was defined by men. Almost always terrible men, ones who took her money or asked her to leave Hollywood or used her children as pawns. Her fourth husband hit her in the face at the Cocoanut Grove. But it seemed unfair to organize her life around the people who controlled it. I said I’d consider it. Research has always been my happy place. It might be related to my sometime collecting of facts about my peers, an attempt to feel safer by mapping the world. If I can chart everything around me as far as I can see, then I must be in the middle of it all, real and in one piece. You are here. Rita was a pinball, bounced from one spot to the next. I related; what had my childhood been but a constant ricochet from one place and one disaster to the next? But to be fair, that’s many childhoods. I have to resist the urge to self-mythologize, to paint my own journey as harder than everyone else’s just so I can give myself credit for getting out. I’m allowed to take that credit regardless. So declareth my shrink. There were kids who came to Granby from housing projects, kids who came as a custody compromise. I wasn’t the only one with a less-than-romantic origin story. Jerome texted, asking if I’d gotten the email from Leo’s class mom about tomorrow being the hundredth day of second grade. It seemed impossible, but the year had flown by. The kids were to bring one hundred of something, and to dress like old people. Lest any twenty-first-century mother find a moment not devoted to proving maternal devotion through crafts. Jerome wrote: Leo on his own or you want me going over the top? I was torn. Teach Leo independence and thereby give the middle finger to a school that demanded this, in addition to Heritage Week and Crazy Hair Day and Historical Figure Day and Cupcake Day and Funky Socks Day—or let Leo’s artist father spectacularly outdo the Pinterest moms. We tended to vacillate between the two responses, our kids sometimes walking masterpieces, sometimes DIY messes. I wrote back: Your call. Although Jerome was fully prepared to glue one hundred gummy bears into the shape of the Mona Lisa, he still wanted me directing the show from New Hampshire. From hotel rooms on podcast tours, I was happy to run things. But even one day into Granby, it felt absurd. I stood to walk around the library at my Fitbit’s insistence, and as I circled I remembered, Mr. Bloch, how you used to nap in the big leather chair by the periodicals, how some of us thought it was funny to leave a magazine in your lap as if you’d fallen asleep reading it. House & Garden or YM or Glamour. I reached up to check the window above the reference books, just in case its sill had gone undusted and undisturbed
| 0 |
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